No Magic - “Forever” Home

 Not much new has been going on in the life of the big guy here. Ok, that would be fibbing somewhat. I’m in the process of landing a beautiful home that might be what the Mrs calls “our forever home”…I hate thinking in those terms. Life changes so quickly that we could have to pick up and leave for any number of reasons. But what I will say is that instead of renting the home we are in now we will be owning a home in Charlotte for the first time and that’s pretty damn cool. 

In order to have money to buy the new home I sold the rental property that I held onto for 18 years. It’s crazy that I kept it that long. My idea was that it was going to eventually be a perpetual source of income but due to this covid situation I would have been a fool not to sell it. I put more money in my bank account than what’s ever been there and much like the kid with a few dollars, the money was burning a hole in my pocket to do SOMETHING with it and another house was the right idea.

We went searching for new homes in the area. Miranda wanted to live somewhere close by to where we are now and opened up the search to extend just a bit past that too. There were a couple of places we fell in love with upon entering but remember the covid stuff I was talking about? People are migrating right now, man. It’s a trip. Charlotte is one of the places people are migrating to and as a result, it is a seller’s dream. People are paying over value for houses all over the place and so the places we went into that we loved and put in good offers for were bid on by like, 7 and 8 buyers at one time and the seller can pick whatever offer they want that was best for them. Which was not our offer.

Sure enough, the house we looked at next to last wound up being the home we are purchasing and it. Is. Lovely. So lovely, in fact, that both my wife and I walked through it and didn’t even put in an offer for it because we KNEW other couples would come through with more money than we had and snatch the house up immediately. It was that nice. This was on a Saturday. I just happened to have that Monday off and I wake up to a text from my realtor that basically said: you know that nice ass house we saw on Saturday? It is STILL on the market! You want to go for it? I hadn’t even gotten the drool out of my beard and the sleep out of my eyes before I paused a beat and typed back “Sure, why not?” The rest is history, as they say.

I guess if there’s a lesson to be learned here it’s that you never know what you’re going to get but prepare yourself as much as possible to be able to get it. I’m beyond fortunate that I was able to sell my rental home at an opportune time to give me enough leverage to get into a house that my wife and I are going to love. It definitely wasn’t magic, that’s for sure. I’m ok with that.