We’ve got some exciting news!! The King-Whited family is moving!
Nate and I have been talking about a new house since I was pregnant with Augustus (who just turned 3 for reference). I’m on some kind of list and get regular calls from realtors, and one in particular calls me every other month or so. At the end of August, we had a few small projects done on our house and while we had a handyman hanging around, we decided to call the realtor to see if he had suggestions for projects we needed to do before selling our house. Somehow it went from, “give us a list of updates and improvements to do over the next few months” to, “let’s just go look at houses to SEE if there’s anything interesting”. We figured it wouldn’t be worth it to even think about buying a house if there weren’t any good houses out there to get excited about.
We went out to look and 35 minutes into it, the third house we walked into, I looked at Nate and the realtor and said, “this is it. Make an offer.” Not only did the house check every “must have” on our list, it also checked every, “would be nice, but not necessary”.
We made a contingent offer, which meant we had until October 12 to sell our house. Our house wasn’t even for sale yet. Over Labor Day weekend, we packed half of our stuff in a “declutter and get show ready” whirlwind. We painted the basement, fixed a million little things, and on September 1, our house went on sale.
Yes, it’s a seller’s market. And I’ve heard approximately 1000 stories from friends and friends of friends who have sold their house in 23 hours with 5 offers. But our house is on a busy street. And we knew it would take the right buyer.
October 2007
I LOVE our house. I bought this house when I was 25 years old and single. Danny and Heather moved in and we learned about home ownership (entirely the hard way). We turned into adults. We adopted 3 dogs. I started working at CYC. Eventually they got married and bought their own house, and then Nate moved in, we got married, and then we brought home our 2 babies. I remember sitting in the NICU when Xander was 3 days old, telling him about our life and our house and that his room was waiting for him and he should hurry up and get big enough to come home because he was going to be happy. And now our babies are 3 and 5 and have so much stuff this house is bulging. Xander has been speaking passionately about wanting his own room. Selling this house is bittersweet for me, and over the last few years of talking about a new house, we’ve also talked about KEEPING this house and just remodeling or adding on or something to change it. But ultimately, we knew it was time. And when we walked into the new house, we were very sure.
Selling a house with 2 small children was not fun or easy and I don’t recommend it. Despite packing most of their toys, keeping our house neat and ready to show at all times was a daily challenge. Nate was constantly calm, cool, zen-like, and a cleaning machine. I was a tightly-wound, ready to snap, on- the-verge-of-tears-at-all-times ball of anxiety. I called our realtor every day on my way to work. My mom and Christine and my co-workers got daily ranting updates. Most showings happened right before or during dinner time. I am NOT flexible when it comes to dinner- we sit down to eat between 5:15-6 EVERY DAY and every time there was a showing, it caused me actual physical pain to adjust our schedule. We had an open house every Sunday for the entire month of September. We spent so much time neatening up, killing time staying out of our house during showings, and holding our breath in anticipation. Nate and I looked at houses online nonstop- comparing our house with every house for sale nearby. It was an agonizing month for an uptight, type A, control freak, super planner and probably even worse for my very patient, easy-going husband.
As September came to an end, we started to make peace with the fact that our house wasn’t going to sell and that we were going to have to let go of the new house. So the third time someone told me to buy a St. Joseph statue and bury it in the front yard (he is the patron saint of selling houses and that is what you are supposed to do to sell), I decided to try it out and went on amazon to order one. When I went to check out, with tax, the total price ended up being $6.66, which seemed like a bad omen, but I bought it anyway, buried it in the yard and said a prayer to please help our house sell within the next week.
On October 12, the day our contingency ended and one week since I buried the statue, we got an offer on our house. We didn’t celebrate- it didn’t quite feel real. We didn’t want to get excited. We just kept looking at each other, saying, “so? ya think..” After such a stressful month, it was kind of anti-climatic.
There was some back and forth with our realtor and the realtor of the house we’d made an offer on… he wanted us to sign a new contingency, giving up our earnest money. We said no. And the next thing we heard, we’d lost the house, despite selling ours within the time. Our realtor convinced us to look at more houses, assuring us there would be something bigger, better, cheaper, nicer…
We hated everything. I was in tears. Nate was mad (which is RARE. My husband is unflappable). After we’d been to the new list of potential houses, Nate announced, “I’m going over there”. We drove to the house we wanted and the sellers happened to be there. And they were the most lovely, sweet, wonderful couple. They invited us in. We all chatted and all agreed we were surprised and didn’t really know what happened, but that our realtors didn’t seem to like each other and weren’t communicating well. And with that, the deal was back on. We were so happy and so relieved and it started to feel like it was going to work out. My husband saved the day and is our family hero!
Our inspection went well. We scheduled a closing date. And now we have a sold sign in our yard. We haven’t cracked open champagne yet, and the St. Joseph statue is staying buried until the final paperwork is signed and keys have been exchanged. In addition to all of the good stories I’ve heard about selling houses, I’ve also heard several disaster stories. However, after the initial challenges, everything is going smoothly and it seems that we are moving!
Our new house is .7 miles away from our current house. Our close date for both selling and buying is November 12.
We’ve hired movers and I’ve bought several children’s books about moving. We’ve been collecting boxes and we’ve got a packing plan. The King-Whited family is moving!
At Edward Jones, when you start out as a new financial advisor, you are a “level new” and then you move up from there to levels 1-10, depending on the amount of assets you manage. On Friday, Nate hit level 1! Exactly a year ago, Nate was 3 months into his new career and he was stressed, anxious and nervous he’d made the wrong choice. Over the next few months, business picked up and he found his rhythm and he realized that not only did he really like his job, he’s good at it! I had 100% confidence in Nate all along and it’s exciting to see him doing so well. I am so incredibly proud of him and know we will have more celebrations in the future. Last night we went to Handsome Hog for a celebration dinner. I snuck away before our food came to ask about desserts (warm chocolate chip cookies is one of Nate’s favorite things in the world) and if they could put a #1 somewhere and they totally delivered! Not pictured- glasses of champagne that they also included. Chocolate chip cookies and champagne is a combination I didn’t know I needed in life! 
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