Real estate rodeo

Heavens to Betsy, y'all, my head is spinning from wrangling real estate the past couple weeks. We FINALLY got our hill country house on the market. I'm praying a large or multigenerational family needing lots of space and breathing room will come along and fall in love with it. Our hope is that it will sell by the time school starts again in August so we can close the door on that chapter of our lives.

https://vimeo.com/1184125956?fl=pl&fe=sh

*click on the link directly above to see the video of our hill country house*

Meanwhile, here at the lake, we (meaning me) decided that our current house on a little lot with big water views just wouldn't work for us long term. And when I say long term, I mean I can't picture us leaving our sweet little community anytime soon. Though the husband and I agree we could definitely see ourselves buying a second home to be near them if our grown daughters move out-of-state. Which remains to be seen. And I digress, as usual.

In considering other lake house options, we've run across a few waterfront properties that would be a better fit for our needs. But I've just felt so welcomed and at home here in our 'hood that I want to continue putting down roots. Honing my mahjong skills. Leading the Monday morning women's Bible study at our community church. Serving as the women's club vice president. When I say I'm getting involved, you can see I'm serious about it.

Since we want to stay here in our golf community, that meant looking at options which would give us more space for a custom build. And ideally a blank slate to create exactly what we want. We discovered a canal lot, as well as a tear down that has golf course and water views. After us hemming and hawing a bit, unsure about committing to a new build, the canal lot was taken off the market by the owner. That left the tear down, which was in a sticky situation, having a reverse mortgage on it with the elderly widowed owner now residing in a nursing home. 

We were afraid we might have to cool our heels months on end if the bank foreclosed on the tear down. But in a quick turn of events earlier this week, the bank opted for a short sale and allowed us plus a couple other potential buyers to make "best and final" offers. We thought we might be destined for a long wait to see how it would all shake out, whether we'd get to purchase it or not. If it was a no, then we'd trust the Good Lord to lead us to an even better property for us in His perfect timing. 

Lo and behold, we got the call from our realtor a couple days later that the tear down was ours. I've already contacted our designer/decorator back in the hill country to let her know I'll be needing her help soon. This will be her 8th house with me, and I'm happy to have her on board. I contemplated using a local person, but just feel more comfortable sticking with someone who understands my aesthetic and I can trust to steer me in the right direction. I've learned a lot from her since we started working together over twenty years ago, and so I feel like this build process from the design end will run very smoothly. Buckle up, because you'll soon be tuning in to approximately 18-24 months of custom home building posts here on the blog.