I love to travel. Who doesn’t? Of course, when I say that “I love to travel” I am referring to actually being at the desired destination not the process of getting there. Packing my bags or stripping down at the airport TSA checkpoint aren’t generally the highlights of my trip. Packing sucks, commercial flying sucks (though there are remedies for both of those issues involving high, high levels of income), but they are worth enduring in order to enjoy the reward of relaxing on the beach, golf course, mountains, or wherever. Recently my wife and I just bought a house, and I found the process very similar to what I just described. Now that we’re in the new house, we love it, and the wildness leading up to it seems oh so like a distant memory. What wildness am I referring to? Buckle up.

With one child almost 2 years old and one that could be excommunicated from the womb at literally any minute, my wife and I found that our 900 square foot, 2 bedroom apartment was not as roomy as it was 5 years ago when we moved in (from a 400 – 500 square foot place). In fact, at the point that we were looking to move we actually had an empty dresser in our hallway, and it wasn’t there for feng shui reasons either, but rather because there was truly no other place it could have fit. Yeah…it was time to move on.

So, embark we did on the grueling process of finding a home. With baby number 2 on the way, my wife was retiring from her former job as a 2nd grade teacher. Exciting times! Definitely exciting, but also challenging to throw a house purchase in the mix since it turns out that Henrico County was not going to continue to pay my wife after she quit…hmmm, who knew. Therefore, our home choices were limited by what we could afford on one less income. However, we leapt in head first: Internet searches, talking to various realtors, looking at homes, talking to various lenders, reading up on what an escrow is…all that mess. Then (jumping ahead) at of the end of June we found a house that we liked and decided to move on it. We put in an offer, did some negotiation, and the contract was ratified. Closing was scheduled for July 30th. We were well on our way!

July was spent dotting I’s and crossing T’s. Apparently when someone loans you hundreds of thousands of dollars they want to know something about you. I love the phone calls from our lender like, “hey, would you mind faxing me over copies of the last 19 years of bank statements…when you get a chance.” Sure, I got them in my wallet just in case. I think I may have set a record for retelling a certain joke during this period (the joke being from an old episode of Garfield when John was at the DMV. He was being asked to provide every possible type of paperwork you can imagine culminating with the DMV attendant rattling off a request for a letter from his 3rd grade teacher and a picture of him in a zebra costume. Of course, John had those on him). Even as a young child watching Saturday morning cartoons, I knew that was great stuff! Anyway, we finally got all of our ducks in a row the morning of July 26th. Celebrations were cut short shortly after though when our realtor called me and announced that the seller was having trouble producing a clean title. Ok?

By the next day, it was discovered that the seller, via two separate liens on the house, was about 21 grand short of selling us the house. Why didn’t she know this when she accepted our purchase price, or why wasn’t the listing agent aware of what was owed when he started trying to sell the house, or why didn’t the closing attorney’s office do a title search until 2 business days before closing, or why, why, why a host of different things? I don’t know, and right now it doesn’t matter (more on that later). However, at the time it mattered…here’s why.

#1. We had already put $1,000 down as a good faith payment on the house as well as already paid for a non-refundable inspection and appraisal.

#2. We had already told our apartment complex that we were going to be out by the first weekend in August (and we already packed up and living out of boxes too).

#3. We had already changed our address at the Post Office, Power Company, Utilities, and everyone else.

#4. We had already ordered and paid for a new fridge, washer, and dryer that were to be delivered the week of closing.

#5. We had already been approved for the loan on this house based on our (at the time) duel income job status. That status expired at the end of August meaning that with the house we had just bought falling through, we had exactly a month to find a new house and close on it…whoa.

#6. We had already found the house we liked!

Now, I’m not one to get worried about things. Worry is interest paid for a debt you may never owe (quote I read a while back). Also, the Bible says, “Don’t worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself.” True, true. I’m down with that. The Bible, however, doesn’t say that “the state of not worrying or being stressed out” is synonymous with laziness. It doesn’t say that it’s ok to sit around on your you know what while life beats the you know what out of you as long as you remain unworried about it. Tomorrow may not be something to worry about, but it’s not because tomorrow is going to find and close on a house for you in 30 days. Therefore, we got up off it and got to work looking for a new house.

In our minds (and the mind of our realtor…who pretty much was our mind the whole time), when the seller is $21,000 short of being able to produce a clean title (and broke), the contract on the house is no good. We looked and looked, and after seeing many different houses (5 in one day was our best day), we found another one that we liked and were ready to buy. It was now a week into August. We drew up the contract, the sellers accepted our offer, and we were golden with only one thing needed. A release from the first contract. Even though, by all estimates, the seller of the first home had no chance of coming up with the money, we still needed her to sign a release to officially end the contract (apparently she legally had 60 days to rectify this oversight as long as she was diligently trying). She refused to sign it, and by requesting that her lenders basically absolve $21,000 of her debt (which they took their sweet time replying to that request), she was legally deemed diligently trying to rectify the problem. Craziness. Everyone told her she had no shot at making it happen, but she didn’t listen, and we were legally bound by a worthless contract. Craziness to the 2nd power.

The thing is, we didn’t have 60 days to wait. In fact, at this point we had 3 weeks to close on this new house, and we couldn’t even get out of the first dead contract to start the process. Suddenly, rerouting a fridge, washer, and dryer, finding our mail, or asking our apartment complex to let us hang out a little longer were the least of our concerns. Again, we took action. Legal action. We contacted our closing attorney, and after explaining the problem wrote a letter to seller# 1 basically stating in so many words, “do what you want, but in a week we’re walking away from this contract.” We were risking being sued by doing this, but as a great orator once told me “sometimes you have to.” (That orator goes by various aliases…Chonian, Mad Chan, and LB are a few of them).

By mid August, we were ready to discard the old contract and write a new one. We did so, and a week later we closed on the new house. Closing a week from the date of the contract is pretty much unheard of, but with God all things are possible. It all worked out, and eventually we even got our official release from the first contract. We love our new house, and though there are a few kinks to work out here too, it is a better house, better investment, and altogether better place to live and raise a family than the first house was anyway. We are very blessed.

Standing in the airport for 2 hours waiting for a plane is annoying, but reaching your destination is almost always worth the hassle. Dealing with an outrageous set of circumstances while buying our first house was frustrating, but the wonderful house God gave us, the house I’m sitting in right now, was worth it too…even though it really was like a full time job making all the pieces fit at the time (trust me, I had to give the abridged version for the blog).

What’s the lesson? Victory is achieved through struggle. We struggled through some uncertainty in the home buying process but eventually (and expectedly) emerged victorious. We kept fighting and believing that the right house was out there for us…and though it was an ordeal, it passed, and when it did pass it ushered in a new era, and one not just of home ownership but of prosperity. I, for one, am welcoming this new era with open arms.