Moving

Tovey and I have been wanting to move for awhile now.  We've been toying with the idea of putting out house on the market but realizing that we probably won't be able to sell it for what we paid for it.  Our interest only loan over the last 6 years has basically translated into a crappy rental agreement.  At least that's how we've chosen to look at it.  If we think of our house as an investment it just irritates us.  No one could have predicted the housing crash of 2008 but unfortunately we are the perfect example of people who got screwed over by the whole thing.  We bought when the market was up and now we owe a lot on a house that isn't worth nearly as much.  For years we've felt trapped in this tiny house with no yard and in a less than desirable neighborhood.
Well....It all started with Shannon getting her Realtor license over the summer and our curiosity as we've seen the housing market recover.  We refinanced our house a few months ago and it appraises around 220,000 and we owe around 220,000 so we thought we would just test the waters.  We put the house up in mid-July for 245,00 which was actually an ere on Shannon's part since we had originally agreed on 249,000.  We were a little gun shy so we didn't place a "For Sale" sign in the yard.  The weeks went by and a few people checked it out but we were getting feed back that the price was too high.  We lowered it again around 230,000 which is about right by the time we pay around 10,000 in closing costs.  Still no movement.  By now we were starting to feel more sure about wanting to move. We put a "For Sale" sign in the yard and started having open houses every Saturday.  We realized that Sunday would be better but we were putting our faith in the Lord here.  Tovey and I were starting to feel more sure about moving and we checked out a bunch of houses and got pre-approval for up to 400k on a house if we sold our current house or 280k if we owned both houses.
One day I found this house on Settlement Dr. in Sherwood.  When I showed Tovey the specs on my phone he said, "Well that's our house let's go put an offer on it".  It wasn't much bigger than our current house which was actually ok with us.  We loved the neighborhood, the 4 bedrooms, the big yard, the school right down in the road in a city where the schools are ranked 10/10 for Oregon.  Overall we just felt this compelling feeling that we needed to move there.  Well we meaning more Tovey than myself.  This was actually the time we decided to move the house down to 230,000 and really start to get serious about selling.
The next 2 months were probably some of the most stressful months of my life.  We attempted to open up a new loan with this house and went through a broker who worked with Shauna and could offer us a big discount.  We waffled back and forth and had us sending him all our financial paperwork and tax returns and back statements.  All along he kept telling me he didn't think our debt to income ratio would work for us to own both homes.  They basically had to go off my last year of income since I am self employed.  The issue was I picked up another contract with Juniper Ridge in John Day which was bringing in another 30-40k a year that they couldn't even recognize.  He finally told me we could do it and on the day I went to drop 2k into escrow he called and said it was a no go.  There I was in the escrow lobby with a check in hand and I huddled into a corner hallway trying to find a way to make this happen.  "Kevin" was his name, he told me it was IMPOSSIBLE, our debt to income ratio was off by a fraction but that no bank would ever pick up the loan.  The only way to make it happen was to sell our Rockport house.
Tovey and I were totally bummed.  By now we were starting to disengage in our ward and our neighborhood and feeling more and more like we needed/wanted to be in Sherwood.  On a whim our backyard neighbor came over and said she was so excited our house was on the market and that her daughter was interested in buying a home.  YES, prayers answered!  The only catch is she only had 220,000 to pay and asked if we could for sale by owner to cut out the closing costs.  We carefully approached Shannon on this since she would be losing the commission on the sale.  She was totally cool about it so I ran over to our neighbors house the next day to tell her we were on.  Well, somehow in 24 hours her daughter completely changed her mind and said she wasn't interested in the house. Back to the drawing board.
We tried to sell the house for the next month but could see that it probably wasn't going to sell so we had to make one last attempt at finding a lender. Shannon gave me a card of a guy she knew who was trying to grow his broker business and was hungry for new clients.  I called him up and he went over the numbers and said he thought he could pull it off.  Then began the next month which at the time felt like ETERNITY.  We had to submit every financial document under the sun.  We had to give him clearance to monitor every deposit and withdrawal.  We could not buy anything, we could not sell anything, we could not accept money or earn money that didn't have a legitimate paper trail.  Every time I got paid we had to make a photo copy of the check.  Then he would want something else and I would have to talk to my bank and look for some old statement or deposit and request the record and fax it in.  We talked him almost daily.  We had to cancel our credit card, re format my student loan and pay off our car.  It was laborious but Tovey and I took it day by day.
Finally the closing date came.  Even when he approved us he still had to find a lender which was not easy.  He finally found someone who made us pay all our loan tax up front which meant by now we had completely drained our emergency fund and savings fund and all funds basically.  Was it worth it?  I asked myself this everyday, while Tovey promised me that he had prayed about it and had a very strong impression that the Lord wanted us to move.  Since "Arron" the new loan officer was so confident we decided to push forward.  We called our new ward, enrolled our kids in the new school, said goodbye to our old ward and flew my Mom out.
So, the closing date came.  I took time off work so I could sign early Thursday morning with the plan to move in on Saturday.  However, I get a call right before I'm heading over there that Arron made a "technical" error and that the paperwork was submitted with some errors and they needed to re-write up the loan agreement which means there is a 3 day turn around before we can sign and get the keys.  The problem was my Mom was leaving early the next week and all the movers and moving van and my time off work, everything was scheduled around the Saturday move.  We freaked out!  I was trying to think of something that could work, somehow after all of this there had to be a solution.
We decided ask the sellers if we could "rent" the new house for a few days before the loan was funded.  We waited all day until late that night they agreed.  It retrospect it doesn't seem like that big of a deal but at the time it felt impossible.  Just waiting and waiting on what the next move would be.  By Thursday night we got clearance and were supposed to pick up the keys Friday morning.  Friday morning rolled around and no key.  We waited and waited.  Shannon calls the other Realtor, we wait and wait. No response.  Finally at 9pm we get a call saying the seller is ready to hand over the key (which actually Shannon had access to the whole time but just needed a verbal "ok").  This stuff is so annoyingly bureaucratic.
Saturday morning went smoothly.  Our Ward showed up in force and had us moved out of there in less than 2 hours.  My awesome mom took our kids to the new house and by the time we got there she had them out of there doing things in Sherwood.  There were only 2 guys from the new ward to help us move in but at this point we were too exhausted to even care.  We were just grateful for the help.
Over the next few days we noticed that the carpets were way worse than we'd thought (like in some places ripped up completely because of their dog).  Because it had been vacant for a month the grass was almost 2 feet high.  It didn't look anything like the day we first saw it.  The fridge and washer and dryer were gone, which we new but we were so tight on money that it suddenly felt oppressive.  My mom ran a load of dishes just to learn that there was leak in the dish washer and a leak under the facet.  The disposal had glass in it, the back screen door completely fell off and clearly wasn't the right size and the back door itself had a a busted lock.  It was one thing after another and all I wanted to do was cry.  Here we were working so hard and still one crazy event after another.
We were able to negotiate a slight refund, well actually agreed not to pay them the original $350.00 a day they wanted for letting us "rent back" the house for a few days until the loan cleared Monday morning.  Also, how can I forget that Tovey's mom gifted us 4,000 towards the house that we decided to use to fix up all the odds and ends and get the old house ready to rent.
It's been a few months since we've lived here and although I'm still waiting to learn exactly why the Lord wanted us here I am so grateful to be here.  I LOVE this little house.  Tovey does amazing things to upgrade this place every week.  This is turning out to be my dream home.
I'll spare the drama of the story for getting our Rockport house rented.  We went through a handfull of applications but eventually found a nice couple with a baby who Tovey felt good about.  I put a lot of faith in what "tovey feels good about".  Not because I'm not privy to spiritual enlightenment but I'm so doubtful and nervous about changes that it's hard for me to see the big picture sometime.  Tovey is really good about being calm through things like this.Our new tenants moved in only days before we were to pay two mortgages and they have been really pleasant renters.