At the beginning of 2012 we had a lofty goal to sell our house. We knew if we were going to be able to do long term missions work, we need to be free from our mortgage. Needless to say this economy isn't the greatest one to sell a house. We didn't know where to start. Do we get a realtor, do we try to sell ourselves? We have never tried to sell a house before and it seemed like an enormous, outrageous idea.
But as God would have it, I was doing some training for a short term mission group heading to the Philippines and one of the members was a realtor we had know years ago. It really felt like God was putting the people in our lives that could help us move forward with our plans. So with an answered prayer in the most unlikely of places we had our house up for sale a month later.
This was a big decision for us. We both were certain that we couldn't sell our house without selling our lot near Harrison, MT (see link Hollowtop Lot). But it could take up to a year or better to sell the house and maybe we could sell the lot in the meantime. We were going to see what God would do. I knew He probably wasn't going to have someone drive up, love the house, and offer $250,000 for it. Funny how things work. We bought our house in 2006 for $205,000. Six months later the exact same house up the street from us, same builder, same layout, same color, sold for $250,000. Then the same house was up for sale again, and sold a year or so before we put ours on the market for around $155,000-$160,000. Incredible what the economy does to a house value. Now I felt pretty confident that God was going to work on our faith, character, perseverance, pride and so many other things through this process and it would be worth much more than a big sale.
If any of you have sold your house you know what a weird and stressful adventure it is. We cleaned, cleaned, touched up the walls (they looked like we played tackle football every night) cleaned some more, reorganized closets, fixed gate in our fence, and a whole host of other things that you never get to until it's time to sell your house! It would have been nice to fix the fence gate so it would swing with ease three years ago. But that's the way it goes.
And then the waiting began. Right away we had two or three showings, with a spotless house (a miracle of sorts with 4 kids) and to top it all off, Brita made chocolate chip cookies just before we left so the house smelled delicious. I did argue once that no one would buy a house just because there was a plate of homemade cookies there, but I quickly changed my mind when I realized I got the leftover cookies :)
Every showing was mixed emotions of hoping they loved the house and make an offer, but secretly not knowing if we wanted to move..... just yet. Then when we heard they weren't interested we were bummed and wondered why. Trusting God in such little things seems silly but is vital. My happiness can't be in the ups and downs of circumstances, it has to be in the joy giver and sustainer of true peace, namely Jesus. Ok, help me Lord trust you through this and may You get the glory!
Finally through a mis-communication a realtor and prospective home buyers knocked unexpectedly on our door one morning. Brita opened the door and was shocked! Apparently we didn't get the message yesterday that a showing was scheduled right then. So they came in and looked at the house- dishes in the sink, kids with Legos everywhere, laundry to be folded and a one-year-old in pj's. This was Brita's worst nightmare! I remember her calling me and recounting her horror and we chalked that one up to "Things you never want to happen again...ever" and went on with life.
But this couple, who saw not the perfect pristine house, but the everyday house made an offer! It was our first one and we were excited... until we were told what the offer was. It was $160,000 AND we had to pay their closing costs! We had set the price at $174,000 because that would be the bare bone lowest price we could sell the house for. Not to make money, but to pay out of our savings to be free from our house.
We counter offered ABOVE our asking price by $3,000 to cover most of their closing costs. Nobody counters higher than their original asking price, seriously. We couldn't go lower so we assumed this was the end. But they accepted our offer! It was unbelievable! We are still shocked when we think about it.
Of course we needed inspections done and an appraisal before all was said and done. What a whirlwind month that was! The inspection was great except they found radon in the crawl space and we needed to put in a radon elimination system, $900 we didn't think we had room for. And to top it all off, our realtor said the appraisal would have to come in really close for this to go through. He also told us that if it sold over $170,000, it would be one of the highest selling houses in RiverRock in the last few years. So here comes worry and doubt. But the appraisal came in at $172,000 and the icing on the cake was that the sellers were willing to split the difference with us. Truly incredible!
So here is the summary of what God did through this process:
- Brought us wisdom in a realtor
- Sold our house to the unscheduled showing with a less than perfect house
- Buyers offered a total of $19,000 less than we were asking and we countered $3,000 higher than our asking price.
- The appraisal was one of the highest in recent years in RiverRock.
- We sold our house without selling our lot in Harrison, which seemed impossible.
- We sold our house in less than 60 days, which allowed us to move into our apartment and save money for school much sooner than we thought.
We feel so thankful as we look to this August. We are currently at 7% of our monthly support and pray that others who want to see the unreached and unengaged people groups around the world reached with the Gospel of Jesus would join with us in prayer and financial support. You can give online through To Every Tribe here and select our name from the drop down box. Thank you for reading the praises we have had in 2012! We so want to hear your prayer requests or just a quick note to say hi. Please email us at joshandbrita@gmail.com
Happy New Year!
