Our First House, and a Modern Day Miracle

When Ben and I purchased our first home, we were told that "if you plan to stay there 3-5 years, you should definitely buy vs. rent."  And, then the housing market crashed…. right at our 3-5 year mark!  You know, also that same time that we had just had our third child, and were literally busting out of the seams of what was supposed to be our starter home.

I count the housing market crashing as a huge blessing to our family, as that was one of the events that allowed my mom to move to our town and be a part of our every day life.  However, it did put a wrinkle in our plans as homeowners!

After adding our third child and second dog to our family, we felt as if we were bursting out of the seams.  With a home office and my obsession with buying and reselling, we had ran out of space.  But… we were not in a position where it made sense financially to sell our house.  It just so happened that Ben's assistant superintendent was in the market for a rental property, so he and his newlywed wife moved into our house and were the most amazing tenants for the next 20 months.  We didn't have to worry if they would pay rent.  We didn't have to worry that we would show up and our house would be ransacked.  They ended up welcoming their first baby in our house, where we had brought home each of our three newborns!  

Randomly I tagged a friend on a picture of our house because she told me she'd be in the buying market in the next "year or so."  One thing led to another and we received a call from someone who had seen the Facebook post, and wanted to see the house.  THAT day.  Wait, what?  So, a few phone calls later, and I was meeting Ben and my friend at our first home.  They loved it, and told us that night they wanted to purchase it.  "How much were we selling it for?"  Well, it wasn't for sale, so I didn't know.  I had a super sweet real-estate friend who ran comps for and told us the range that we should sell the house for.

We never put our house on the market, showed it twice (to the same family), and did not have to pay real-estate commission.  What an answered prayer, and a dream come true for this (insanely busy) working mom of three who would have been stressed to the max with a house on the market.  It was so neat to watch all of the stars align perfectly for this to come together.