You might (or might not) want to read parts 1, 2, and 3.
Leslie had stopped by an open house that morning and was excited about the house. While it was a little odd looking on the outside (true), she said it was great inside (also true). Most importantly, it was in the very community where we most wanted to live--and it was only 5 minutes from Chris and Leslie. It was For Sale By Owner, so she had met the owners and talked with them at length--about the house and even more about us. (Leslie sold us to the owners!) They said they hoped to hear from us and gave their contact information to Leslie, who passed it on to us.
I knew immediately this was the house. In the car on the way home from Chicago I looked up the listing and called the owners. They were thrilled to hear from us--and so quickly! They could tell we were serious right away. We talked for a bit. They explained that they would soon be empty nesters. They had planned to sell the house in a year or two, but had suddenly felt like they should sell it this year. So they hurried and put it on the market. It had only been listed for two days--and already they had a lot of serious interest. I explained that their house was exactly what we were looking for, that I trusted my sister-in-law's opinion (which is so true--she should be a real estate agent), and that we wanted to put together an offer for them right away. (Crazy, right? But it felt normal, really.) I further explained that we were out of town but on our way back--we just needed a little time to get back home and put together an offer. (We'd never been involved in a For Sale By Owner, so we had a little research to do too.) They explained that they had other offers coming in that weekend, but they would keep us updated and that they hoped to see one from us.
The short of it is this: They received two other offers that weekend--cash offers--but they accepted ours! Wow. And do you want to know why? Our late closing date.
Because of the late closing we'd asked for (without really knowing why) on the house in Wisconsin, we had to ask for a late closing date on the house in Ohio. It turned out the owners didn't want to move out until later in the summer. Our ridiculously late closing date was like a Godsend. (It was a Godsend.)
Here a couple of other tidbits:
Because we (Leslie) found the house so soon, we hadn't had a chance to find an agent. Since this was a FSBO house, not having an agent worked in our favor (along with the late closing date).
Because it was a FSBO deal, we had to put together the contract by ourselves--which happened in the middle of the night. (I think we finished at 2 am.) We were so clueless. My dad the lawyer gave us some good advice (some of which we followed and some of which we didn't), and there were resources online. But it still wasn't enough. If only we had a complete Ohio real estate contract to use as a template ...Wait! We did! We had a copy of the contract our Dayton-area agent had drawn up for the little house we had tried to make an offer on in Dayton. Another Godsend. Seriously.
Also, thank goodness we'd felt that sense of urgency--and that we'd continued to act and press forward.
Even that Montessori school in Dayton worked in our favor. It got me to Chris and Leslie's house! They'd moved to Ohio after we had left the first time, so I'd never been there before. It was a million times easier to take the step of faith to live there (and buy a house I hadn't seen) because I had visited back in March. I had a picture in my head. I knew it was a beautiful, wonderful area. I knew it was a ward where we would be happy. I knew that Greg's drive to Dayton would be bearable--because I'd done it myself. Most of all, I knew that I wanted our families to be close. I really don't think I would have been capable of considering living there if I hadn't visited a month earlier.
I am generally not one to ascribe every little thing that happens as "the hand of the Lord." I tend to think that life just happens, and, while God is watching over us, He's not a micro-manager. I also believe that He doesn't always give us specific guidance, even on decisions that seem very big to us (like buying a house). But I have to acknowledge that in this particular case, my general beliefs do not apply. I cannot doubt the Lord was working in my life on some very specific things.
A few weeks after all of this--after we had a contract on both houses--Greg and I were asked to speak in church. We were assigned to talked about Proverbs 3:5 and D&C 6:36, which also happen to go along nicely with one of my favorite scriptures, 2 Timothy 1:7. As I prepared my remarks, I experienced an impression from the Spirit that, in this case, the hand of the Lord had been very involved, that God had been carefully arranging things for us to end up in the right place and in the right house. I had the specific thought that He had quietly prompted the owners in Ohio to put their house on the market a year early, and in that particular week. I suddenly realized how many little things (small and simple things) had worked together in our favor--from when we put our house on the market here to our morning spent in the temple instead of choosing a real estate agent. God had worked a miracle in our lives, and I could not deny it.
So I am taking this opportunity to thank God and acknowledge His hand. And I am reminding my future self to "doubt not, fear not" and instead "trust in the Lord." God has given me "a spirit ... of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." I know God loves, and, perhaps more importantly, I know God cares.
