We took the plunge

I promise you all that this really is a blog about Mommy-hood and not really just a blog about buying a Countrywide short sale. Unfortunately my life has been so consumed with this stupid short sale that all of the time I spend on the computer is all about buying a short sale, what the timelines are, how they escalate them, what to expect, who to harass when things aren't moving, all of that good stuff.

Actually- I also promised I would be blogging much more and to date, well, I haven't followed through on that promise. Because we have been packing and moving to our short term rental. Do you remember me saying I wasn't going to relocate unless we got some positive news by August 13th?

Don't get all excited. We haven't gotten any positive news. But we did decide to go ahead and act on a leap of faith. We packed up all our crap, stored some of it in two sixteen foot POD's and relocated the rest of it to a small rental house. So for the last two weeks we have been packing, moving, packing some more, moving some more, and unpacking.

I am not going to lie- it has been rough. I mean, rough. As in we were at the old house last night until 10:30pm packing up the last of our garbage stuff. Apparently in mover slang they call it "chowder" and we have a lot of it.

It has also been hard on my heart. We know that we are doing this for our kids- to be able to provide them a safe place to play in the backyard without the possibility of a golf ball. We are looking to provide them a dedicated play area in the house instead of a "toy closet". We want them to know the lifestyle of growing up with a basement, even in the desert. But still- it has been harder than I ever imagined, and not from a physical perspective. The first night we spent in the new house we got Hayley all pumped up about our new little house and all the fun we were going to have here. She was excited until it came to bed time. We were very careful to make sure that we had their beds all put together and their rooms organized by the time we brought them to this house so they would at least have some continuity to their lives.

Hayley started crying while I was laying in her bed with her and she said to me "Mommy, I want to go home." I said "Punkin, we ARE home."

She said, "No Mommy, I want to go to MY home."

And that did it for me. I just about broke in that one moment. I felt like a terrible mother. I felt like a failure for having uprooted my children just to accommodate these perfect tenants and also in the hope that this would be a very temporary situation. And of course that spurred us into action.

We have decided that waiting around on this short sale might not be the best thing for our kids. We also put an offer in on a bank owned property this weekend as well. It needs much work- but also it has many features that we hadn't really thought of when we put the offer in on the short sale. It is hard not to get our hopes up that we really might have some closure to this emotional home buying roller-coaster. The only reason I am not getting excited about it at all yet is because we saw the home approximately nineteen hours after it was listed on the MLS and we were already behind several other offers. We wrote an offer immediately of course- standing in the kitchen of the home. As we were leaving someone else pulled up. We wanted to tell them there was a giant dead rat in the living room and not to bother looking but we didn't.

Our realtor has followed up (I love that woman!) every day since we sent in the offer Saturday and as of right now it sounds like there are so many offers on the table that the bank might hold off reviewing any of them until it has been listed for a week or so. And then we have been told this bank will come back and ask us for our highest and best- a scare tactic to make you think that someone else is offering something better than you so you better pony up. And we will. Pony up that is.

If anyone tells you it is a buyers market in Las Vegas right now just laugh in their face and give them the bird. It isn't true. The only people that seem to be able to open doors are the cash buyers- and if I had four hundred thousand dollars in cash I certainly wouldn't be sinking it into a home in Las Vegas. It is most definitely a sellers market- at least for bank owned homes. So yeah, some of these banks have taken a bath- but it is tough to feel sorry for them in the slightest.

If you want to know where to find me in the next sixty days you won't have to look far. Take a step in any one direction in our short term rental and you can see from the front to the back of the house and side to side too. I will have my head buried in boxes trying to find somewhere to tuck things so they will be out of the way. The thing about small houses is there are less nooks and crannys. Not bad when it comes to having to clean- but not the best for hiding the chowder.

Comments

[Carla]

Ugh--moving! I still have my fingers crossed that everything works out and you guys will be settled soon. I'm laughing out loud at the term "chowder"--we cleaned out our basement and garage and got rid of an unbelievable amount of it, it is amazing how it all builds up. I can actually park in my garage now, what a concept!

[Minnie]

Moving totally stinks. Especially when you're exhausted, mentally and physically.

Hang in there love.

[Crys]

I too am still trying to get all of our junk out of the old place and into the new, while burying into boxes swearing that I packed that thing.

[Jennifer]

When did you originally start the whole short sale process. It seems as though it's been quite a while. I really hope something happens soon-one way or another. Living in limbo sucks!