A Place To Call Home

The last few months have been one big roller coaster ride- emotionally and physically. Since Tommy accepted the position in North Carolina, we have been in a mad scramble to find a house. We thought this process would be pretty painless since we had no house to sell on our end. I was wrong. It was plenty painful. First, the area in which we were looking and needed to live is so expensive that we were suffering from extreme sticker shock. Turns our our quaint little North Carolina town is a second home haven to many coming to enjoy premier fly fishing year round. Second, the lovely folks in this quaint little town are less willing to negotiate because they are aware of the value of their desired location. Third, even though it is said to be a "buyers market", there were just not that many homes that would work for us to choose from.

So about two months ago, we found the perfect home in the perfect neighborhood. Tommy could literally walk to the university from the house. We put in an offer and the negotiations started. About two weeks later- a contract was signed. And then we had the home inspection. Needed: new roof, new AC, new wiring, new washing machine, well water needed treatment...and the list goes on. We tried to negotiate further and the sellers were unwilling to budge. Tommy and I headed to NC this past weekend to look at two other houses with the idea that if they did not work then we would just eat the repairs and keep the contract on the first home. The first house that we looked at was too small, and then we saw the second. New construction. Farmhouse sitting on top of a mountain with a 360 degree view of all the mountains. Enough rooms, bathrooms, everything seemed perfect! We fell in love. The only problem was the price. The builder had it on the market for two years and refused to sell if he was not making any profit. He said no. Our realtor called his realtor SEVEN times begging for him to reconsider. He said no. On our way home, we received a miraculous phone call saying he was reconsidering the offer.

Fast forward to today. If we did not terminate the first contract by midnight tonight- we stood to lose all of our earnest money and would have to proceed forward and go with the first home. To wrap up a very long story- we were emailed the signed contract at 5:30pm and got the home on the mountain that we really wanted!!!! A lot of stress, but it all worked out!