No longer "For Rent"

When we bought this house with it's five bedrooms and over double the square footage of our old house we made one serious agreement we were not willing to go back on....That we would not walk away from our old house. We even wrote a whole letter to the lender stating that we were going to rent out the old house, because we could afford both houses (barely...but still) so there wasn't a "need" to walk away. Some people have choosen to walk away from older, smaller, more expensive mortgages, in view of the current downturn of the market. Most have HAD to walk away from those mortgages, but in either view, we were planning to be the exception to the norm. That made us stand out to the lenders and we were able to get the loan for this house in near record time. And now it's been nearly 4 months since we became the owners of 2 houses and still only one has been occuppied. In the beginning it was the holidays, then January it was because the friends who were helping us to prep the old house just didn't have as much free time as they'd thought, so the painting and repairs were dragging on and on. Finally in Febraury Adam decided to just fork out the money to pay professionals to do the work. The work was done mid-February, but still no renters. We'd posted ads for the rental as well as held several open houses. There was some luke-warm interest but no one seemed very serious.

Adam in the last few weeks had started to consider what it would be like to actually just let the house go, deed it back to the bank, or even short sale it, just to be rid of the burden. And while i suppose some part of me understood that, I just couldn't imagine going back on the statement we had made which was the main reason we were able to get this house....that we wouldn't just "walk away" from the other one. Everytime i reminded him of that, he agreed so we trudged forward. Everytime I prayed I felt that God's plan was not for us to go back on our word and to "have faith" God will provide away....it's hard hearing the same answer over and over with no results as yet....but we continued having open houses and placing ads.

Then at our last open house a young woman, single, working mother of two young boys came to an open house and was VERY interested. She stayed and filled out the application right then and there as well as paid me for her credit report right then as well. We also recieved another application that same day from a family down the street, the owner of the house they rented was letting it go to foreclosure and they needed to move out in a matter of weeks. We told everyone that day that we would be choosing someone the following monday so that they could move in by March 1st. (really not looking forward to another month of two full mortgage payments)

Out of the two apps we recieved we called references but were concerned about the actual number of people residing with the family from down the street, although she only listed four, we had seen for quite sometime that an additional daughter and friend had been living there as well. So we just the single mother, her job references were great, she had the money and we were glad to be helping her out. When I called to tell her we'd picked her she suddenly decided she couldn't move in until March 15th (I'm assuming that meant money problem...needed another pay check before she could afford to move in) we agreed that if she wanted us to wait that long she was at least going to have to put down the FULL deposit amount for us to hold it that long, because we could rent to the people down the street and get a full month's rent to begin with. She agreed to pay the full deposit and meet us at the house on Saturday at 11am...this was her best day and time, not mine.

So Saturday (today) we pack up all five kids and Adam and I drive out to Modesto, where we park and let the kids watch a movie in the car while we wait...and wait. At 11:05 I call her cell just to verify that she is still coming....i get voicemail and leavea message. At 11:15 the baby is crying in the back and I step out to call her and tell her that we are only staying as long as 11:30 and if she isn't here by then she forfeits any and all contract with us. Voicemail. We're sitting in the car and Adam sees the family down the street loading things in a van. Well, I thought, there goes our only other chance for renters...they must have already found a place. I was feeling very down and Adam decides to go talk to them just to see. Turns out they were moving out their grown daughter and her friend to an apartment (so yay they really didn't have too many people living there!) and the rest of the family still needed a place! He informed them if she didn't show they were second our list (didn't have to tell them thankfully that the list was only 2 people LOL) so a few minutes later at 11:30 I called to inform the young woman she had lost her chance at the house and we were renting it to someone else. And later today we had a signed contract and first month's rent and deposit paid by the people down the street!

It was such an amazing feeling to drive home, a few kids snoring in the back, another one crying, and one who sang every song on the radio...while I smiled, knowing that the Lord had kept His word and provided a way. We are so happy that we have been blessed to be able to keep the word we were inspired to give.

And as a happy side note, we're getting our new dining room table this week...can't wait to post pics!!

(happy dance to follow.....)