Our Homeownership Story

As I start this post I think about how things truly do come to you if you just want for them. Back in July after we had endured the buyers market in our town for only a month - I was frustrated, upset and defeated after having lost out on what I thought was the perfect home for us.

I heard this quote in a podcast while I was out for my morning walk back then and saved it to remember how I was feeling when the time came that things worked out for us.

Fast forward a few months to the fall, I felt this feeling even more so. Our apartment lease was ending the beginning of October, and we knew it would be a total waste of time, money and effort for us to find a local month to month option near where we were currently living. This meant we were headed to Geneva to live with my father for the unforeseeable future. 

We weren’t worried about living with my father, the change in scenery, or the “being away from what we know” part for a bit - we were mostly worried about “how long would we have to wait to find our home?”.

Then, after only three weeks of being in Geneva, we went to see a home that we felt was a long shot. It was by far the nicest home we had seen in our search (we saw a total of fourteen homes and lost out on four) in the five months we had been looking. 

It was so nice that we rushed through our tour because we thought “this will never happen!” after losing out on the four other homes that didn’t even compare. Beautiful hardwood floors, a brand new finished basement, perfect location - everything we could have dreamed for but knew by now to expect disappointment.

We left the house saying, well, lets put in our highest and best and expect nothing so we aren’t hurt when we get the call that they accepted another offer. And since the housing market is so insane right now, offers weren’t even being looked at until the next day.

The next day passed, we both went to work and lived our lives. For the first time, I was not obsessing over the “what if” all day long or mining through Pinterest to plan for our “what could be” home.

We continued our day, had dinner at my moms, and as we approached the 9pm hour (by then we had forgotten about the house, assumed we didn’t get it, and moved on) when my phone rang and our realtor called us. She said “you won’t believe me, but you got it!” - from there we smiled ear to ear, my mom was overjoyed, and we said “I cannot believe it’s ours!” to each other a million times that evening. 

We went back to my father’s, got ready for bed, and before everything we did we said, “hey, we are homeowners” - just because that’s how we are!

The months leading up to closing on the house certainly felt slow but it was so worth the wait. Closing day, the eight long days we put into painting the whole house and our cabinets, and now the three weeks we have officially lived here have been so joyous. 

All of this goes to say yet again - “Be faithful where you are now. Be good, work hard, have faith and God will open doors for you”.