First, an apology for ghosting this space for the last year. It was never my intention, but I think we can all agree that as soon as 2020 got here everything went insane so it seems par for the course really. And as if 2020 wasn’t filled with enough anxiety, we decided to top it off with selling our beloved little first home and moving!
As much as we loved it and made it our own, we always knew that this little house wasn’t our forever home and over the last few years we’ve tossed around the idea of selling and either building or buying somewhere out of Corpus Christi. It just wasn’t the right timing for various reasons before, but our home value got high enough this year to make us take a more serious look and just go for it, no matter how painful it was going to be.
(listing pic courtesy Laurie Lyng Imagery)
Our jobs keep us in the area unfortunately, but the only other place in the area we always said we’d like to live is in Rockport, so we started there. It’s been a dream of mine for a long time to build, but after looking at a few less than impressive lots and how the cost to build has skyrocketed this year, that dream quickly got pushed to the back burner again. So we started looking at homes, talking to realtors, and had listing pics taken so that we would be ready.
We always casually kept an eye on the home market in Rockport, even while we were thinking of building, and both Matt and I had saved one house in particular when it came up in mid-2019. Fast forward about a year and it was still available when our plans changed, so of course we had to take a look. We fell in love with the curb appeal, quiet neighborhood, and the size of the home and yard, and knew things were about to get real serious.
If you love real estate stories, buckle up, this one is a doozie. If you don’t, just skip down to the end and hop to the next post of all the house pics…where I wish I could’ve just fast-forwarded…
We called to put an offer in the Monday after we toured the house, only to find out that they had already accepted a contingency offer. Absolutely crushed, we asked if there was any way at all we could still compete and it turns out, there’s kind of a loophole. If we could get our house listed and under contract before the other buyers’ contingency ran out or they get under contract, the sellers would then have the option to accept our backup offer. In that case, the sellers give the first buyer notice to remove their contingency in however many days is in their contract (usually 3-5) and if they can’t then we would become the new buyers. We weighed our options over the next few days, not wanting to lose this house but also NOT being risk-takers and terrified because we knew our house would go under contract fast and we could be left having to scramble and rent if the first buyers still pulled through or ours didn’t get accepted. But it’s 2020, and we decided to go for it.
Within 24 hours of our home going up on the MLS, we had 12 showings and within 48 hours we had eight offers all over our already-higher-than-comfort-level asking price, with people calling our realtor continuously to still see the house. It was insane. But once we accepted an offer and were under contract on that third day, we put our strong backup offer in on the new house and a few days later we got the news that the sellers accepted our offer. BUT, now we had to wait an even more excruciating seven days that were in the buyers’ contract for them to get under contract on theirs or just remove their contingency. On Day 4 though, after touring a second rent house to be sure we had an Option B, I was in a meeting at work and got a text from our realtor that says “You got the house! The buyers backed out!”. Immediate relief, and then immediate frantic stress lol.
From there we began a month of drama around both selling and buying that I hope to never relive EVER, and will spare you the details of. In summary though, read your sellers contract carefully about what can stay and what goes fixture-wise and list exceptions thoroughly, and be sure that your new home has all the required certifications before you’re out of the option period (cough, windstorm, cough). The anxiety and drama we dealt with caused us to not be able to really cherish the last month we had in our home which still makes me sad. We really tried, but there were so many days of back and forth not knowing if this was going to go through or not, filled with sleepless nights and all day nausea, it was horrible. While closing was on track for our old home, the appraisal on the new house was horribly delayed which pushed our closing two weeks back, so we had to move in and rent back from the sellers for a bit. Apparently there are a ton of people moving and refinancing right now which has really stressed some areas for appraisers. 2020 for ya.
The moving van pulled up October 2nd and we closed on our old home that same day. And go figure, the first signature at the title company table is when my flood gates opened and I was a crying mess through it all, the poor lady went and got Kleenex, closed the door, and gave me the sweetest impromptu therapy session pep talk, reassuring me it happens all the time there. So.many.emotions. But as of October 15th, she was finally officially all ours!
I owe all of a you a huge thank you for still being around here and for all the support over these last few months. I was still able to hop on Instagram and share what was going on there, but sitting down to do a post has just been impossible. I know we all have so much craziness going on lately, but if you’re like me, home design and décor is a welcome break and refuge. So now that we’re settled and the projects are starting up, I definitely plan to make an effort to share it all here again but definitely follow on Instagram because I’m on there way more often with lots of peeks and inspirations.
There’s another post after this with the full gamut of photos for a before tour, so hop there next to see all of our new home. I’ve been sure to snap a ton of photos from when we first toured the house since I didn’t do that at the last house and didn’t have those fun terrible before shots to compare anything to.
Welcome back, and stay safe friends <3
Congratulations! So exciting! I know that stress and can totally relate. Best wishes for your new home!
Thank you so much Martha! It is such a brutal process but we are so happy to be settling in finally <3