Dave & I are so excited about our new home! It has all happened so fast that we're still finding it hard to believe that we actually are moving! While we were in Florida, we found out that our house sold! We are closing on our current home on Thursday, April 29 and will be moving on Friday, April 30 and Saturday, May 1. (Yes, we will be having a "moving party"--help us move and we promise to provide great food!)
Our new home is in a neighborhood only about 3 miles from our current home. We first saw this home in January when we were out looking at houses with our realtor. We absolutely loved it (especially Dave!) because it had absolutely every feature we were looking for in a home, it was in the area that we wanted to still live, and it was on a large corner lot. It had been on the market since October of 2009. The bank which owned it had repainted the whole house & replaced all the carpet in December. We kept our eye on it, but we also kept looking at other homes and waited for ours to sell.
In February, we noticed a small note on realtor.com saying that this house was going to auction in March. To be honest, we weren't quite sure what to think. A (very) small part of us thought that we might have a chance at winning it, but we were sure there would be many bidders and that it would probably go for a higher price than we were willing to pay.
Now, I have seen footage on the Today show of home foreclosure auctions...there always seems to be hundreds & hundreds of people, TV crews everywhere, an auctioneer talking so fast you can't even understand him...and when somebody wins a bid, they jump in the air and cheer! So, that was pretty much what The auction was held on the evening of Tuesday, March 16 at a hotel ballroom in Las Colinas. When we arrived an hour early to pre-register, we thought the auction might have been cancelled since the lobby & hallways seemed nearly empty. (Where were the TV crews, I wondered?) Since we got pre-registered so quickly, we had nearly an hour before the auction started, so we went on a walk. By the time we returned, there were a few more people, but not nearly the hundreds I had envisioned. My parents met us, and the four of us went into the ballroom where the auction was to be held. The auctioneer explained that only six houses would be up for bid that evening, which was why the crowd was so small.
This house was the second one up for bid, and I think I held my breath for the entire time (which was probably only 45 seconds!). There were 2 other people bidding on it, & they were both investors. The bids were going up by $10,000 increments. One of the investors bid at the $10,000 increment that was near our stopping point; we weren't willing to go another $10,000 higher. One of the men who worked for the auction company quickly came over to us & asked Dave if he wanted to go up another $10,000, and Dave said no. Then he asked if Dave would go up $5,000, and again Dave said no. He finally said how much Dave was willing to go up, and Dave said only $1000. Because it was such an odd amount (considering that the bids had all been going up by $10,000), the auctioneer stopped and said (to the auction company worker near us), "Did you make up that number, or did he?" Everyone in the crowd (except for us!) laughed. Then the auctioneer said to the investor who had made the bid previous to ours, "You're not really going to let him take it from you for $1,000, are you?" When the auctioneer said that, I really thought the investor would go higher, but he didn't...so the auctioneer pounded his fist on the podium and yelled, "Sold to bidder 425!" My eyes filled with tears and Dave & I stared at each other in disbelief! We couldn't believe it! Dave's face was so ashen white that I thought he was going to faint. The amazing thing is that we won the bid at the EXACT amount--to the dollar--that we had decided upon before the auction.
This house was the second one up for bid, and I think I held my breath for the entire time (which was probably only 45 seconds!). There were 2 other people bidding on it, & they were both investors. The bids were going up by $10,000 increments. One of the investors bid at the $10,000 increment that was near our stopping point; we weren't willing to go another $10,000 higher. One of the men who worked for the auction company quickly came over to us & asked Dave if he wanted to go up another $10,000, and Dave said no. Then he asked if Dave would go up $5,000, and again Dave said no. He finally said how much Dave was willing to go up, and Dave said only $1000. Because it was such an odd amount (considering that the bids had all been going up by $10,000), the auctioneer stopped and said (to the auction company worker near us), "Did you make up that number, or did he?" Everyone in the crowd (except for us!) laughed. Then the auctioneer said to the investor who had made the bid previous to ours, "You're not really going to let him take it from you for $1,000, are you?" When the auctioneer said that, I really thought the investor would go higher, but he didn't...so the auctioneer pounded his fist on the podium and yelled, "Sold to bidder 425!" My eyes filled with tears and Dave & I stared at each other in disbelief! We couldn't believe it! Dave's face was so ashen white that I thought he was going to faint. The amazing thing is that we won the bid at the EXACT amount--to the dollar--that we had decided upon before the auction.
We knew that the bank had the right to accept, reject, or counter our offer. We were pretty sure that they would most likely counter it, since we had won it at such a low price....but we didn't think they would counter more than $5,000. Needless to say, we were shocked when we received an e-mail on Wednesday saying that the bank had contered at $25,000 more than our offer! Yikes!
Dave & I talked about what to do, we prayed, our families prayed, Dave & I talked some more, and some more, and some more...Dave was convinced that we should not go up any higher. I begged, pleaded, cried, and tried my best to convince Dave that, yes, we should go up a little higher...I didn't want to lose this house at all. Dave explained that he wasn't comfortable going any higher due to the higher utilities & property taxes we would have at this house, & I finally agreed that he was right. He called the auction company back to explain that we wouldn't budge on our offer.
And...I am so glad he refused to go higher, because on Friday we got a call that the bank accepted our initial offer! I don't think I've ever heard Dave yell so loud! Since then, we have driven by, walked around, and peeked in the windows of our new home at least half a dozen times. We couldn't be more excited about this new house! More than anything, though, we are once again in AWE of God's provision for our family! This is definitely a story that is going in our miracle book!
So does this mean we have a place to stay if we come visit you in Texas? Because it looks like you've got a least one guest room! Congrats!
ReplyDelete:o) Amanda