To Hell With 'The Recession'

We sold our house. It was on the market for exactly one month before we received an offer. The offer was fair, they accepted our counter and that was that. No stress, no difficult decisions, just a few initials and we ended up getting 5 grand over the high end of what we were told we could expect. And this was in December which is generally the slowest time of year for real estate. I could not be happier with the way things went.

Everything has worked out perfectly with this whole thing. We did what we thought was right and it paid off, which is such as awesome feeling. Nick’s dad told us we should rent it out for the winter, do the siding and windows in the spring and THEN list it. I am so glad we went with our guts and listed immediately or I just know we would end up having to replace a furnace or something like that in the meantime and I honestly think that if we invested the money in windows and siding we would be lucky if we recovered it, there wouldn’t be a profit in it - and our realtor echoed those sentiments. So cleaning it up and only having to pay a few months of mortgage and utility payments was so much easier to swallow than worrying about renters and everything else for an extra six months, then having the stress and expense of doing major exterior renovations. All the while having our new ugly house in need of it’s own renos. This way it’s just done, we walk away with a very tidy sum in our pockets and now we can start making all our dreams come true in the new. Starting with a new bed and new appliances. And as soon as those beautiful new appliances are in the kitchen I’m going ‘Office Space’ on the old dishwasher.

Having it done and gone so fast would actually be worth losing a little money, truth be told. I really don’t feel we took a loss at all but even if we could have held out say three months and made an extra 5 or 10 thousand - even 15 - I would rather sell now for what we did get. We were in a position where the word ‘loss’ really doesn’t come into effect because our timing was so dead on we could never, ever lose money on the deal. And I really feel that it doesn’t pay to be greedy when you’re in that kind of position. When you start to consider the expense of keeping the house vs. the extra amount we could have got for it next year then the margin really gets so thin it just would not even remotely be worth it. And then if something happens like a furnace crapping out or a picture window getting broken the margin completely disappears. Even the money we could have made using it as a rental just would not be worth the stress in my opinion. Money really isn’t everything so why tempt fate for a few extra beans?

I know it sounds like I’m bragging but I really fucking love our life. It’s probably bad ju ju to say it but everything has a way of working out perfectly for us. I’ve thought this for a long time and I actually said it out loud to Nick for the first time a few nights ago and he feels the same way. I don’t know if it’s luck or just being smart, it’s probably a mix of the two, but our timing and our decisions are always right on the money. I hope I didn’t jinx us but I just can’t believe how amazingly perfect our life together has been. I think the biggest factor in everything has really been timing. Everything from when we got back together to buying our first house to getting married to buying the second one and selling the first has just had the absolute perfect timing. It’s definitely all about timing Oh ya, and love, that’s pretty dang important too but that goes without saying, if love isn’t there then timing wouldn’t mean shit. You just can’t force things that aren’t ready to happen is my point.

So now we get to go on a little spending spree, I’m getting a fancy newer vehicle and we’re going on a trip (or two) next year. Then we’ll bank the rest of our money, slowly plug away at the renovations we need to do and then plop a big sum down on our mortgage on it’s one year anniversary. Yep, 2009 was pretty great but 2010 is going to be awesome.