The biggest deciding factors was not only did we NOT want to be in limbo between houses and be giving birth to our first child, but it would also be terrible to try to keep a house show ready with an newborn baby and lots of family in town.... not to mention I love my job- and I would take about a 1/3 pay cut to work in AL (on top of licensing expenses).
So thus began the look for a place to rent in Maury County.
We decided on Spring Hill because it is closer to my work (about a 25 min drive) and about the same distance for him (about an hour drive) compared to Columbia. But we wanted something close to the interstate since we will both be taking it into work- just in opposite directions.
Road Block one: Price Range... Seriously people?!?! Why in the world would I want to pay anyone hundreds of dollars more than our mortgage to RENT there place? Uh- I think not!
Road Block two: Libby. Yes she is a dog, and yes, she does in fact weigh 75 lbs... but she won't tear anything up! She is better than most children!!! But no one will listen if you say you have a dog over 35lbs, even if you offer to pay more for a pet deposit.
Road Block three: The GM plant in Spring Hill is opening back up so we were on a time crunch to find something before everyone moving back to work at GM took all the good rentals.
The pressure was on....
We found this cute little 2 bedroom 2 bathroom condo on a golf course in Spring Hill that was reasonably priced and we both liked. Plus they let us have Libby no questions asked (with a substantial pet deposit) AND they have a community pool! So we crunched the numbers and we could afford to pay our mortgage and the rent at this place- so we jumped on it. I mean it was the ONLY thing we had found that even allowed a dog over 35lbs, so we could not pass it up... otherwise if our house did sell we (well just Libby I guess) would have no where to live.
We decided to sign the lease starting January 1... that way we could do a slow move in. After all we would have 2 months or so to get settled before Mary Claire arrived. I was so excited to finally have some definite plans, and a home we could bring our new baby home to.
So the Friday before Christmas we did the walk through and signed the lease. On the way home from the condo my phone rang. It was our realtor... we had an offer!!!!
Let me just stop here--- tell me that is not a God thing?!?!?!?!?!?! We had been praying and praying for God to lead and guide us to make smart decisions for our expanding family, and man did he deliver! Not 2 hours after we signed a lease to our new home we got an offer on our house! It was/is so hard to make the conscious decision to give up "control" and pray He will provide, but He can- and He did. GOD IS GOOD!
So after 5 counter offers and LOTS of number crunching we have a contract. We knew we would have to pay an arm and a leg to sell our house, but man it hurts seeing it on paper! The market has gone even farther south since we bought the house and we only have 2 years of equity in it. So between what our house has depreciated and realtor fees we are looking at bringing A LOT of money to closing. God has gotten us this far in all of this, and he has provided us a mean to pay for closing, so we are very grateful... but it just hurts. It hurts to know that we have not made any bad decisions, but are still getting the short end of the stick. I would say it's a lesson learned, but what lesson? We didn't do anything wrong, Chase just got transferred. I wish we would have had a crystal ball 2 years ago... but It's just the way the cookie crumbled.
So for this reason I will be glad when January 30th rolls around and we close on our house. It will feel good to put all of this behind us, and lick our wounds before we start a new chapter in our lives as parents.
But on the flip side I am an emotional mess about it all. Moving is stressful in itself and add to that the fact you are loosing 100 square feet (although the way that condo is laid out feels like we are loosing more), a 2 car detached shop, a yard, and a guest bed room BUT gaining another person WITH all of their stuff.... I am a little stressed. I sooooo want to make this place nice and feel like our home, but it is just so hard. It is not ours, and it's just temporary- so we don't want to pour a lot of money into it. I want to have room for all of our stuff and all of her stuff too- but that just isn't happening. That is a hard pill to swallow for me.
I keep you posted (and share pictures) as our story continues to unravel...
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