The Taylor Family: Moving on

On our last trip to Vegas I shared that we ran into a good friend of ours, Paul, on the airplane. We all sat together and talked on the 5 ½ hour flight about just about everything. One of the things we discussed was the possibility of Peter and I moving out of our current house and into something a little bigger. Peter really needed more shop space and I could stand to use a bigger kitchen for our growing family. We weren’t so concerned with the size of the rooms or even getting more rooms (bedroom or otherwise) but the shop and kitchen definitely needed some attention. Paul is a realtor so I knew I could get an honest and informed opinion from him. I told him that I had talked to Peter about it in the past but Peter was hesitant because of the economy and all the horror stories we had heard about people getting denied for loans and losing their homes to foreclosure. Also, we didn’t know what the requirements were as far as down payments and deposits went. After talking to Paul in length about it all we both decided we would start looking, not necessarily to buy something right away or to definitely move but just to see what our options were. When we all got back to FL, Paul had us give him the criteria in a home we were looking for and price range and put us on an email notification system so we knew when homes we may be interested were posted or altered. We currently have a 4 bedroom 2 bath with a 2 car garage but it is super tiny. We said we would consider a 3 bedroom (the girls can share) 2 bath as long as the shop space and kitchen were adequate. Immediately we had about 60 houses to look through online. We went through each on but none really popped out to us or drew too much of our interest. I did a little searching on my own and found a house about a mile away that looked like it would meet (and exceed) all our “needs”. The problem was it was a bit above our price range, which is why we didn’t get an email about it from Paul. Nonetheless I asked Paul if we could go see it after showing Peter the pictures online. The only concern I had was that the house would be too big. I didn’t want a big house, I was happy with our little house just needed certain things changed a bit. We went with Paul and his wife, Nancy, to the house and as soon as I walked in I said, “I’m not old enough to have a nice house like this.” It was beautiful and much nicer than anything I thought we would be looking at. We had said we wanted something from 2000 or newer and the minimum 3/2 for beds and bath and at least a 2 car garage. This home was built in 2006, is a 4/4 with a 3 car garage (perfect for Peter’s shop) and has a large kitchen with an island. It is right next to the girls’ school so they could walk to it and save Peter an 1 ½ hour drive to and from to pick them up and drop them off each day. When we left our walk thru I asked Peter what he thought (thinking he would be a bit hesitant) but he said he really liked it. That surprised me because he was still a little reserved about the whole moving thing and I didn’t want to push him into something he didn’t want or wasn’t ready for. Because the price was a bit high we just sat back and continued to look at other homes online but didn’t actually go out to any we might be serious about. We didn’t think the home we really liked was anything more than a dream but God had a plan we couldn’t see. After having a conversation with Paul about homes I said, “can’t we just get that one home that we went to see?” We knew the price was too high but not even 2 days later the bank lowered the price and Paul called to see the status. He knew the listing agent and she told him that someone else had put in an offer that morning when the price went down. We didn’t know what the offer was but Paul told us if we wanted it we had to make a move. After much paperwork and discussion we submitted an offer and the very next day the bank asked for our best and highest offer (from both us and the other person). Paul told us this would happen (though we didn’t expect it so quickly) so we were prepared and submitted our next offer. Again, the very next day, the bank got back to us with a counter offer. We countered them and they accepted and then we were officially in contract for the house. The next few weeks seemed liked months, it was constantly hurry up and do this and then wait. Every day we didn’t hear anything about the progress of the contract filled our heads with doubts and concern but we decided that God had a plan and we just had to wait to see what it would be. We wanted His will to be done so we tried to be patient and we prayed about each step and where He would take us. We were pretty hush hush about it all to our friends and family and only told a few people. I think we were guarding our hearts in case of a big letdown. Finally, after a ton of paperwork and Peter gathering all the information for our broker and title agent, almost daily, we had a closing date set for today. This morning Peter and I went to our

broker’s office and signed the final forms for the closing of our house and received our set of keys to our new home. We are still in awe of how God moved in all of this. He had every last minute planned and every minor detail that we didn’t think was relevant worked out perfectly and only later realized that every minute thing was precisely what we needed to make things fit together. We went to our new home and did another walk through and praised God for how He was moving in our lives. There is so much to do now and million things to plan and schedule but in this moment we are just thanking God for His favor, mercy and grace.

Friday, March 8

Moving on

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