In the ongoing saga that is our move, if you read part 1 you’ll recall I mentioned that a bomb dropped.

That bomb was that the house we fell in love with got an offer on it the same day, with no contingency and that offer was accepted. We were devastated and we were about to list our house. But we kept the faith and kept imagining that home we saw was our home. There is something to be said about positive thinking and envisioning your life. We continued to look at other homes but the one we saw was still listing as “Pending” and we gave hope that would change. Our real estate agent in North Carolina, Stephanie, kept a watchful eye and also looked at other homes for us. All the while, we continuously watched the home we wanted.

Our real estate agent in New Jersey, Sally, came by on a Wednesday with a photographer and got the ball rolling and on Thursday, our house was listed with a scheduled open house on Saturday. The activity on the house on Zillow was crazy with views and saves quickly hitting double and triple digits. Unexpectedly we had two realtors bring people through the house on Friday and then the open house happened. To our surprise, one of the couples that showed up on Friday returned to see the house again and the wife of the couple was in tears saying how much she wanted the house. 4 hours later, we had an offer, an offer above asking. We accepted.

My wife called Stephanie after we accepted the offer and let her know and that made her happy as we now had more ammunition when looking for a house. We continued to check the house we wanted on Zillow and half-heartedly looked at other homes. In my head and heart I could see myself in this house. I could see myself making tea, working in my office, going out to the garage to get the bike ready for a ride and even cleaning up dog poop in the back yard. I could feel that house as mine.

I don’t recall how it happened and/or what order it happened, but I do remember my wife yelling to me on Sunday night, the day after we accepted the offer, that the house we wanted was available again. We whooped and screamed “YES!!” and within seconds she was on the phone to Stephanie and she was instructed to put in an offer at full price. We weren’t screwing around. Around mid-day Monday morning we got a call from Stephanie that our offer had been accepted. A huge weight was lifted from one shoulder and we knew it was go time. We had pre-approval for a mortgage and now the only hurdle would be getting the full approval, a task that would take a month and a crap load of phone calls.

Admittedly, my credit score is crap, mid-600’s and this bothered the mortgage company, so there were many back and forth requests from them for information and answers to questions that seemingly answered themselves. “Have you ever missed a car payment?”…. Uh… well my credit history will tell you that I have never missed a payment. “Have you ever missed a mortgage payment?”…. Uh… are you guys new at this? Have you not looked at our mortgage payment history? No we never have missed a payment. There were some other questions that had me going “uh… huh? What?”. But, you comply and give them what they want because, they have something you want; A shit ton of money for a house you saw for 20 minutes and only once.

Finally, after much hullabaloo, we got a call from our mortgage representative, Christina, that we have full approval for the loan. The other shoulder received relief as the second weight had been removed.

Next up: Moving Hell Begins.