Pins and Needles

The last 14 days have been the longest of my life. Zach and I have been obsessively searching Zillow for a few weeks, and over Labor Day weekend we finally went looking at some 25+ houses. Initially we limited our search to Grapevine, Kennedale, Mansfield and Arlington because we wanted to be between Dallas and Fort Worth. Our search over Labor Day was a little discouraging. We found one house we liked, but it was sold before we finished lunch. Houses kept getting sold out from under us. It was crazy!

I kept hoping we'd find something awesome in Fort Worth (even though it was really too far west for us) and therefore would have to look at it, but there wasn't a lot in south Fort Worth that fit our criteria. Just for fun, I looked up "neighborhoods in Fort Worth" and plugged them into Zillow one by one. Wouldn't you know, two really cool houses popped up in Cooke's Meadow--which is far east Fort Worth, almost to Arlington. I know nothing of the neighborhood but one of them looked AMAZING... it was huge, on a huge lot, beautiful and priced far below what we'd expected to pay in other parts of DFW. It was listed the week before. So... we called up our realtor Mike and made an appointment to look just two hours later.

I was apprehensive driving to the house. What if the neighborhood was rough? What if the house backed up to a major street? What if we hated it? None of that was true. We drove into a beautiful old neighborhood (a plus) with big trees (plus) and a quiet cup-de-sac (plus). The house was prettier than we'd hoped and we knew it was what we wanted right off the bat. We put in an offer within an hour after we arrived. Apparently someone else liked the photos online because an hour before we got there, someone else had placed an offer. And two other people put in offers after us. I don't know if this is typical for buying a house. Is that crazy or what? We spent a nervous night praying about the house. Is this the one for us? Is the neighborhood where we're supposed to be? Will we get the house?

I think the biggest sign came the next day. The church we go to in Dallas (45 minutes away from both our old apartment in Haltom City and Cedar Hill, where we're living now) has always been too far for us to really get involved. We'd resigned ourselves to finding another church when we finally find a home. However.... our church is opening a Fort Worth campus.... less than half a mile from our new home. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? We can finally get involved. I cried. Answer to prayer!

The story is dragging on, so I'll try to wrap things up. Seller picked us out of the three other offers. So far everything is coasting along at a pretty good clip. We're now waiting for the appraisal and the mortgage to be finalized before we can sign. We're hoping to close before we go out of town at the end of this month. I've been on pins and needles during this whole process. I don't want to get attached to this house, in case something falls through. But I really feel that if this is where God wants Zach and I, the process will continue to go smoothly. If not... then it's back to Zillow.

I'll keep you posted.