Real Estate Soap Opera -Part 1

This post can get very long, so I have decided to break it up. I want to start from the beginning. For as long as I have known Jon he has wanted to develop real estate. I can even remember back to our early days of dating, he and I riding around looking at houses. It's just always been his dream.

About 3 years ago God provided us with a decent-sized savings account, a book given to us by a friend of Jon's Dad, and an amazing opportunity which included meeting a complete stranger on the courthouse steps who educated Jon about the world of flipping houses. He was one of these guys who talks alot about what he knows. Jon soaked in all he could, like a sponge. God's hand was all over it. . . and we have absolutely no doubt about that!!

During that period of time, Jon and I started talking about sacrificing and sacrificing things in order to, as Dave Ramsey says, "Live like no one else today, so you can live like no one else tomorrow." We decided to look for a foreclosed home and sell our current home we were living in. We were just assuming in order for it to be sacrificial it had to be smaller, in a less desirable neighborhood, etc., etc.

Well God blessed us again. He provided us with a sacrifice home that was about 500 square feet bigger and in a nicer neighborhood . . . all with a lower house payment. On top of that, after putting our house on the market for 2 weeks, we had a contract (I didn't have my real estate license at the time). Jon often teases me about this being a sacrifice home and just how much I've sacrificed *smile*. I just always tell him it is the favor of God. Praise His name!! This is the home we have been living in for the past 2+ years.

I should back up a minute and say at some point when we were living in our old house . . . this must have been before we talked about sacrificing things in order to build our business. . . we purchased a little over 6 acres. It again was a total God thing. It was land that had been foreclosed on, and we literally got it for half of what it was worth. Once we started talking about buying a "sacrifice house", we decided that after we built the business up we would sell the "sacrifice house" and build our dream home on our land.

Okay. . . back to present day. . . back in January, I saw this house in the MLS that I knew had been foreclosed on with a local builder. . . in a very nice neighborhood, bigger, all the bells and whistles. I told Jon we should go and look at it, just to dream and get ideas. We did and then took his parents by there. They were both very excited, as were we. I really needed Jon's Mom to help me convince him to take a chance, and she very much thought it was a chance worth taking.

However, at the price it was listed we were afraid the bank would not come down to what we needed for them to. So, Jon did what he does best, he started researching. He told me the only reason he was even considering purchasing another home for us (not the business) was that because NOW is the time to buy. Interest rates are super low. The market is flooded with foreclosures. All at this time, we were still in "dream land." I knew us buying another home for ourselves was very far fetched and not really a reality.

One morning Jon told me he found a house he wanted to go and look at. It was in one of our towns nicest, more established neighborhoods, and was a good bit cheaper than the house we had looked at originally. We looked at it and I fell in love with the floor plan. I absolutely loved the neighborhood and it was only 2 miles from his parents. Jon, at that time, wasn't quite as enamored as I was. He was really unsure as to why I liked this house more than the previous one. This one needed LOTS of elbow grease and a really good face lift. The other one was move-in ready. It literally looked like a house that could be a feature home . . . very, very, very nice. I would just tell him, "This one seems more feasible to me, and I just can see our family living here."

So, I did what I do best, I started putting the pressure on him, "Have you called a lender? Have you called a lender?" We were concerned with us being self employed what a lender would say about us carrying 2 mortgages until we sold/rented/leased our current home. Jon went back to the house by himself a 2nd time, and this time he returned home just as smitten with the house as I was. So, so many things would really have to fall in place for us to get the seller to come down to what we needed them to, us to get financing (remember our business is in real estate, which things really aren't selling right now), selling our house. We were still in "dream world."

I will continue with Part 2 tomorrow. Until then I want to leave you with this scripture.

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." Malachi 3:10