Five Minute Friday: ONE
One offer.
That’s what most everyone has said would happen as we tried to sell our house. One offer (the first) that would be the highest we were going to get.
We turned that one offer down; it was much lower than what we were asking. We couldn’t accept it without being underwater, so we persisted.
And here we sit, nine months after originally listing it, three months after parting ways with our first realtor, and trying to figure out what to do.
Everything about the “potentially underwater” part is no one’s problem but ours (we made our bed and are lying it it…).
Maybe it’s magical thinking, as I know selling a house takes work, plain and simple, especially if you don’t use a realtor, but I keep thinking there is one family out there for whom this is *the* house. It certainly was for us.
We didn’t turn it into the showcase it has the potential to be. We extended ourselves so much to get it, we didn’t leave much room for enhancements (see the “underwater” part a few paragraphs above).
But it holds within its walls all the energy created by a family going through so many cycles of life — almost all of Tenley’s and Wayne’s school years, my father-in-law’s last years, the bulk of my Healthy Kids career and subsequent career change, Wayne’s layoff by the Florida Senate and the rough road that led to.
Maybe there will be rough roads for whatever family ends up here next (all families have them), but I hope to find the one family for whom it is the perfect repository of all the best energy too.
Welcome to this week’s Five Minute Friday. Our instructions, via creator Kate Motaung: “Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation.” (But I can’t resist spell checking, as you can imagine.)
Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.
I’m sure God will send the right family your way.
I know – thanks for your encouragement.
I LOVE the robust and hopeful way you’re looking atthis, Paula. The right family will come your way, and you’ll be as much a blessing to them as they will be to you.
You know, that would certainly be the best of all outcomes. The couple who built the house were selling it because they were getting a divorce. Hopefully our totally flawed (as we all are) but unified approach to the time here has resulted in a good legacy for whoever comes next. It’s a great neighborhood and home to grow up in.
Oh I feel for you! I have a house that I couldn’t sell either, but I have been able to successfully rent it so far. I KNOW there is someone out there who can love my little house the way I do.
Good luck!
🙂 gwingal
Oh thanks! It’s ironic because we were so anxious to be in this neighborhood. The sign had been up about five minutes before we bit — we were the first to ask about it and .. bought it! It’s not a showcase after all these years and staging it isn’t our forte, which is hurting the whole process. Hopefully the realty/karma gods will have mercy on us though — it can be so fabulous for the right family.