I’ve been too busy house hunting lately to blog! But it’s high time for a brief update.
In short, we placed an offer on a house, the offer has been accepted, and closing could come as soon as this Friday. The sudden action has left us dizzy and grateful and relying more than ever on God!
This house is not the same house that I mentioned in my last post. That house turned out to have multiple problems that we couldn’t see until we looked inside–especially water damage in both the basement and the attic, with a slope to the property that promised more flooding problems in the future.
The moment we stepped out of that house I asked our realtor what he had scheduled next. Did he have time to immediately look at another house?
He did. So we all drove right over to a house that our realtor and I had looked at back in January. At that point it appealed to me in a lot of ways, but seemed beyond our budget.
Since then it dropped in price. We are currently under contract for buying it for $65,000. More price negotiation may yet happen based on an inspection we had done this past weekend, and we can still back out if we wish.
This “new” house (definitely a well-used dwelling) has a lot going for it. Most importantly, it has lots of room inside and out for hosting church gatherings and piano students, there is plenty of parking space, and the street is quieter than some in the neighborhood. While we might not often walk from there to Steve and Christy’s, the park, or the library, we can drive there in about five minutes or less.
(I’ll likely share some better pictures of the house after/if we actually buy it. For now I’m exercising caution for privacy and purchase negotiation reasons.)
The churchfunding effort that many of you have joined on our behalf is making this house purchase possible! And since we can make a cash purchase offer, it is giving us a leg up on price negotiations, too.
If any of you want to help out more—and make your money go further, and see our house!—then here are some ways you could help:
- Offer to stay in our new house—starting almost ASAP—to help keep it secure while we wrap up things in Iowa and prepare the house. Sign up to stay for a few days, a week, or a month. Free Atlanta lodging! Not luxury at this point, but hopefully with water and electricity. 🙂
- If you have already offered to possibly help prep the house, confirm if you still think you might be able. An experienced (and hired) contractor to oversee the repairs would be a blessing. Steve can offer part-time oversight, which is great and may be enough, though he does have a day job. Work tasks will include HVAC installation, wiring, drywall, painting, doors, flooring, replacing window panes and at least one window, and other similar things. House cleaning and yard cleanup will also need to be done.
- Pray! As first-time home buyers, we are on a steep learning curve. Pray we can make wise decisions that will free us long-term to serve God and others.
I think that’s all for now. Send me an email or Facebook message if you want to discuss any of this further. (Or comment below with more general responses.)
One more thing: It was a great blessing to have the Gingrich and Smucker families all together again this past week for the first time since last summer! Children and adults all enjoyed it. Sharing a Lord’s Day together—including celebrating the Lord’s Supper for the first time as a fledgling church fellowship—was especially special.
For Christ and his Church,
Dwight Gingrich
