As the readers here at EOT already know, my family and I recently relocated from San Diego to Kansas City. A new job and a more affordable and higher quality of life was the reason.
I am fortunate to work for a great company who has made it amazingly easy to adjust and set us up to find our new home. Right from the get-go, my wife and I have been able to make a separate trip to look for a house, and have been looking since we arrived a few weeks ago.
Armed with news that housing continues to slump throughout the country, we thought heck, it’s a buyers market so we’re going to find a house very quick.
Not so fast.
As the father of four, and a husband, finding a home has been an all consuming activity. Each free day, we’re touring homes and lugging the kids along since we’re new to town and have no one who can babysit. That’s been a challenge but not as big as actually finding a home in the price range we’ve given ourselves.
We have found, what we believe, to be the “perfect” home for our family. The only problem is we’ve been outbid twice. That’s right, outbid.
I guess in some ways it underscores we have good taste because with the inventory that is on the market, the only two houses we’ve been serious about have lots of interest. As much as a house becomes a home, a real estate transaction is a business transaction. You have to do your best to keep emotion out of it. It’s a transaction, or so we tell ourselves.
Just yesterday, we lost out on a house my wife really, really wanted. The kids wanted it. I wanted it. We simply came up short.
After about an hour of negative thinking, I snapped out of it and realized everything happens for a reason. It’s hard but we’re getting through.
Moving is difficult enough. When you lose out on a house, it has a way of deflating the whole family. You just have to trust that things will work out.
With our corporate housing only going 60 days, we sort of have a deadline but don’t want to be forced into buying a home we don’t want. No one wants to “settle” for something with such a big investment.
I don’t know why the Kansas City market is picking up. I don’t see that happening anywhere else, which makes you ask yourself: “what did we do to deserve this?”
Anyway, the family continues to settle in. I don’t like shopping for homes and it’s certainly not our favorite part of our new digs.
As my last post here on the EOT blog stated, moving continues to draw our family closer. The bonds are stronger but the stress level has increased. I assume that’s natural but we’re looking for that break in the clouds.
Especially if it has four bedrooms and a finished basement.
Follow Scott on Twitter @sdgully or email him at sgulbransen@gmail.com. His personal blog, where he writes about leadership and social media, is www.scottgulbransen.com. Scott also a contributor on Technorati, to the Shamable Blog, and is the Director of Social Media & Digital Content for Applebee’s at their corporate office in Lenexa, Ks.
Moving is such a stressful thing and when you’re buying the home at the same time, it adds about 10 more layers of stress. Add kids, a wife and a new job into the mix and you’re dealing with the perfect storm of daddy mayhem. Good luck Scotty boy…you’re gonna need it (or a big bottle of scotch).
I like your attitude – everything happens for a reason. We lost out on our “prefect” home due to a miscommunication with our Realtor awhile back. As a result, we had to move from the home we sold to a rental with a toddler and half of our possessions in storage. It didn’t help that every time I thought about our perfect home, I would become incensed… but I was finally able to let it all go when we did land, 5 months later in the home of our dreams — which was MUCH better than the “perfect” one. So hang in there!
(just a point of clarification… the toddler named above was NOT put into storage for 6 months… just our possessions were. I didn’t proof before I posted. hehe)
Moving from an apartment to another apartment across down is difficult enough! Cross country – I cannot even image. Hang in there; I am a firm believer in karma and know when the right house comes, you’ll be able to make a home out of it.