How many people do you know that can sell the same house three times but still own the house?
Prior to going to Mexico, we decided we should sell our house. And anyone who knows us also knows how that turned out. Not well for the sale. We actually had two offers and both ended up falling through. Which was for the best in the end because we were able to come back and live in the same house for the last two years. God took care of us then.
This time, we’re selling our house because we don’t know when we’ll come back. Or if. And we prayed heavily over it. And just over a week ago we got the text message from our agent we were waiting for:
“Offer coming.”
Yes! Such great news. But of course, we didn’t get too excited. Then we worked with the potential buyer. Like any initial offer, it was much too low. So we kindly suggest that they get closer to our asking price. They come back a little higher, but still substantially lower than what we offered.
And so on.
And later that evening we come to an agreement. It’s not a great price for us, but all the other details are great. So we accept it. The offer is conditional on the usual two things: financing and a house inspection and both of these are to be completed in a week’s time.
We let a few people know about this development so they can pray, but we don’t tell everyone. “Let’s wait until it is unconditional.” is what we say. No sense in getting people too excited. (that is why most people didn’t know that all of this was going on the past week, sorry if you’re upset…)
The weekend passes and a couple days of the week go by with no word on when the house inspection will occur. We find this odd since they were pretty excited about the house. When I ask my agent what’s up, he says that they were waiting for one specific person to do the inspection and it looks like it will be on Friday. This scares me a little. Why do they want that one specific inspector? And on Friday? That’s the last day of the conditions! Talk about leaving this to the last minute.
(This has been a theme of our lives the past while as we get prepared to move out. Things are happening, but at the last minute. So the inspection timing didn’t seem too odd.)
The other development was that we were going out to my brother and his wife’s farm in Saskatchewan on Friday. No big deal, my agent confirms, there won’t be anything for you to sign when the conditions come off. So we pack up and head out early Friday morning.
As we get near to the farm I get a text from my agent,
“two issues with the inspection…”
And my heart drops. What kind of problems? How will this affect the deal?
And over the next few hours my agent and I email/text and phone back and forth to figure out what’s happening. Essentially, the inspector found two “major” items and assigned “appropriate” repair costs to both items. (I used quotes on major and appropriate because we differed significantly with the inspectors view of the “problems” and how much they cost to fix. And I can’t state enough how much we differed on the costs!) The buyers wanted us to reduce the purchase price (which was already a little lower than we wanted) by the repair costs. We offered to fix them out of our own pocket and leave the price as is. “No” they said.
We offered to drop a tiny bit, since our price was already pretty low. “No.”
And it became very clear to us, this deal was dead.
So we gave our final offer on the price, and never heard back. Yup, we just sold our house and lost the deal in conditions for the THIRD TIME.
The next couple of days were full of mixed feelings on what just happened. Thankfully we were able to work our butts off digging holes and planting stuff with Trev and Jess which removed the energy to think. But on the drive home I really got a mindful of thoughts. And all of them were condemning and angry.
“You idiot, you wanted this house sold but you got greedy. Now it will never sell.”
“You moron, you prayed for God to send you a buyer. And when He did, you turned them away. You messed up big time.”
These voices were pretty loud. And difficult to ignore.
Then the quiet voice spoke up.
“It’s going to be fine.”
“You did the right thing.”
“I’m going to bring the right deal to you soon. There is still time.”
Here’s something I’ve learned about the voice of God. It is not a condemning voice. It doesn’t attack and make you feel small and worthless. It is a voice that is calm, loving and above all it gives confidence.
Oh, how I love the quiet voice.
So, once again our house is on the market. (Good price too! Tell your friends!) And I have to fight off the loud voices that want me to panic and make bad decisions. Because through all of this the quiet voice is reminding me that the buyer is coming. The calm voice reminds me that we will have the financial support we need to live in Texas. The peaceful voice reminds me that in the end, these things are tiny to accomplish and they will happen in time and on time.
The quiet voice has never lied to me.
/RD