2013 will be blogged!

July 10th. That was my last post. Great job, CC. Way to stay on top of things!

I've been dealing with this constant feeling of overwhelm, too much change and transition, and too many things on my plate. New job with much more responsibility, new house with much more responsibility, new bills, new this, new that, more this more that... You get the idea. Unfortunately, I put blogging on the back burner because too many other things took priority over it.

Looking back, I don't think I made the right choice. We had a Christmas party at our home and some friends were so impressed with my organized kitchen that they took pictures. Seriously. One friend even took pictures of my pantry and my entryway. I totally admit to feeling some major pride and that's when it really hit me. I have missed being able to share my work and oh, there has been so much work.

2013 will be blogged!

Last I left you (way back when), we had a purchase agreement on our condo and we found a house we were in love with but we weren't sure if we would get it because of a lawsuit filed against our condo association. Most banks didn't want to loan money to our buyer because our place was under litigation. It was an incredibly frustrating time for us because we did everything right (saved $$, paid our dues, researched, advertised, etc.) but we could still lose the sale and ultimately our dream home.

 I'm happy to report, all turned out ok.We sold our condo! We got the house! Hurray!

To catch you up to speed and give you all of the details, the lawsuit was regarding $2,000 worth of unpaid dues and interest. $2,000 was going to cost of everything! We were pretty desperate and even offered to pay to make it all go away, because the amount of equity we would lose was way more than $2,000. It was too late though; the suit had been filed and was in process.

Our Realtor, God bless him, had some great contacts and found a bank that was willing to loan to our buyer. When the lender found out some information about the suit (it was already in mediation and looked to be reaching a settlement soon), he agreed to loan to our buyer, who had 20% to put down and excellent credit. In today's market, you can't lose a buyer like that.

We were ecstatic! That was our last obstacle! We had already put in a purchase agreement on the new home, with the stipulation that our current property would sell, of course. We got an inspection done on New House and it came back clean and clear. There was some more back and forth with paperwork and timelines. SO MUCH PAPERWORK. SUBMITTED IN TRIPLICATE, YA'LL.

We listed our condo for sale on June 10th. Within two weeks, we had two showings. Both of the potential buyers called us back a week or so later, wanting to put in an official offer. We had a purchase agreement signed about two days later. We had a couple more phone calls from interested buyers after that but, since we already had a purchase agreement, we turned down showings and stopped advertising. We were able to close on our condo on July 31st. We closed on our new home on August 1st. Husband and I joked on the way home from closing on the condo that we were now homeless, since we hadn't officially bought the new house yet.

We feel pretty damn lucky. There were other condos and homes in our area that were not selling. Some of those places are STILL on the market. Times are tough, peeps.We were very nervous when we put our place on the market. What if it doesn't sell? What if we get an offer, but it's not enough? We have a certain amount we need and, if we don't get it, we can't afford to buy a place.

Luckily, our place sold quickly and for the price we needed. Whew!

Financially, we came out better than we planned. We got our full asking price for the condo, we squirreled away as many pennies as we could for a nice amount in savings, our payoff for the condo was a little less than we thought it would be, and the sellers of our new home were ready to get rid of their property and gave us an amazing deal. I'm not saying we're rolling in the dough with our fancy pants on, but we can buy name brand ramen noodles. I mean, we still gotta furnish this new place.

I really believe that our two years worth of planning and staging of the condo made it all possible. No joke on the two years of planning. When Husband and I got married, we started planning on buying a house together. We spent a year getting my credit up and paying off all of our debts, like student loans and cars. We researched real estate prices in our area. We researched what kind of home we wanted and how that translated into dollars. We figured out how much we would need for a down payment to make the mortgage affordable. We budgeted to make that happen. We researched tips to sell our condo. We spent a year staging our place, a little bit at a time. It all paid off!

I think I'll do another post with tips I learned for staging. Spoiler alert: Clean like you have never cleaned before. And of course I will do a post with pictures of New House! We took plenty when we moved in! I have so much to catch you up on too! We've already organized and painted some rooms. I told you I've been busy! It's been worth it though.We wake up everyday saying, "I love this house."

Catch me up to speed with you! How has the blog world been?