God always provides Part 1 (The Selling)

Let me start at the beginning.

We have wanted property for a long time. It began as a desire for a way of raising our boys. A lot of hard work and the reward of the payoff for that hard work. It progressed to a desire to be able to grow/raise our own food. We prayed and waited, asking God to take this desire off of our hearts if it was not His will. This post is a look back at how God provided what He wanted for us.

Being the fiscally conservative person that I am I cringed at the thought of paying A LOT of money for someone to sell my home. A home I was thoroughly convinced would not only be easy to sell but would sell quickly. I felt fairly confident that I could sell our home. Michael on the other hand didn’t want anything to do with it. With his busy work schedule it was worth it to pay a realtor. He did however utter those wonderful words, “If you want to do it, go ahead.”

God had given me the confidence to sell our home. Now I began wondering how I would get people to our home without being on RMLS. Our home was not visible from the street so drive by buyers would not be an option. Enter Dianne Schneider, the best mortgage broker out there. She suggested a company called “BuyOwnerOregon.com”.  Through paying a small fee I would have access to all the documents needed to sell my home and would be put on all the search engines for potential buyers. A God solved problem.

New problem. How do I price our home? I knew we had a great home in a central location with the best yard for kids and entertaining. But how do I figure out the right price? Too high and you won’t reach all the potential buyers. Too low and you lose money. Comparables were hard to figure. Our home was only eleven years old in an area of homes up to 100 years old. Homes of similar size were listed at a price much lower than what I wanted for our home. God gave me the confidence to price it at what I believed it was worth given the circumstances. A God solved problem.

At the beginning of February I started packing up our home. It’s called de-cluttering. I made a list and took the month to get through it. We rented a 16 foot POD and began loading it.  It took longer than I thought because I kept thinking “I should pack up this as well”. My list grew. It grew so much that Michael thought our home looked too sparse. I thought that was a good thing. People can picture their possessions in our home if there are less of ours.

Well, February came and went and soon it was March. Not only was I still packing up but now began the cleaning process. Washing walls was laborious. Thanks to Mr. Clean Magic Erasers it was easier but still quite a lot of work.

Our plan all along was to get our house on the market and sold before the “hot” time of the year which I figured was the beginning of May. I really feel it was God who changed my perspective on that date. I began to  feel that we needed to list our house by the last weekend of March. A lot still needed to be done. I scheduled carpet cleaning, window cleaning and a photo shoot. The photo shoot was worrisome because of the rainy spring weather. We chose to use our friends, Paul and Jennifer Hartung,  who have a photo business called Jenn Lynn Images. We scheduled a date for the photos and prayed for nice weather. The day of the photo shoot dawned with clear blue skies. A God solved problem.

The thinking ahead side of me began to worry about that selling price. Would an appraisal come back at the price I was asking even though the only comparables were much less money? I was told that if we had multiple full price offers then the appraiser would take that  into consideration. I began to worry about how to stall that first offer long enough to get others. I wanted at least five days before having to answer an offer and yet they typically only give you 24 to 48 hours. I could make up a story as to why we couldn’t get back that quickly but that would be lying and I don’t lie.  New problem. I began to pray about it.

In the midst of getting our home ready to sell we were, of course, looking at what was out there to buy. We saw something that interested us on Zillow and I decided to send an email via Zillow to the realtor. My email was quickly answered with a phone call from Natasha Ochs with Merritt Realty Group. What a positive, encouraging person she was. We knew we wanted a lot for the amount of money we were willing to spend. So many realtors were telling us that it wasn’t going to happen. Natasha was just the opposite. She and her business partner Deawn Seals had plenty of experience in our type of situation. She didn’t even mind that I was selling our home myself. She just said to let her know when it went active because she may have a buyer. Natasha and Deawn were also willing to answer any questions we had on offers. There were just so many reasons to like these ladies.

Our home went active on Friday March 28. On Saturday we had two showings. Sunday brought us four showings. Between 7:00 pm on Sunday and 4:00 pm on Monday we had three offers. All offering more than our asking price. I called Natasha and Deawn with each offer, and they had great advice. Each offer was better than the one before so by the time we got the third offer it was obvious that it was the best offer. We accepted that offer. Multiple offers above asking price within 24 hours. The appraisal wasn’t going to be an issue. A God solved problem.

Those of you that know me well are not surprised by my wordiness. I love the details and especially when they are about God providing.

I will post again about the amazing way God brought us to our farm.

Karen