My family owns a warehouse in a city. We had been looking to purchase a home near our warehouse for a while. Unfortunately the housing market has been crazy and we just didn’t want to get into a mountain of debt to buy a house.
We also wanted to house that could accommodate our growing family. We have 3 adult children. One is married and has a child. One is engaged. The other is single but may get married someday. We also have two teens who potentially will marry someday in the future. We knew our home needed to be a place where our growing family could gather and not be stuffed into a small space (which is what we have now). We also wanted a yard and a close proximity to our warehouse. Try to find an affordable house in a city during a housing market boom. Even small houses or houses that are in disrepair are expensive.
Since we purchased our warehouse a few years ago, we had become acquainted with our surrounding neighbors. Many people in the neighborhood are renters so it’s hard to get to know any of them but there were two houses that were owned by the families living in them. While we weren’t particularly close with them, we all watched out for each other’s properties and would stop for a chat if we were outside. One of the families ended up selling and moving away. The other couple had some health issues and the husband sadly passed away. The wife moved out to stay with family after he passed. I would see her there checking the mail from time to time so I would always stop to talk to her to see how she was.
After she had moved out, I had asked my husband what his thoughts were about asking her if she wanted to sell at some point, and he was on board. We even discussed and agreed upon the price we were willing to pay if the opportunity arose. However, since her husband had recently died we didn’t want to seem intrusive so we didn’t say anything to her. In my quiet time though, I prayed for an opportunity.
One day she was at the house and I mentioned that the other neighbors had sold and moved away (the new folks were moving in that day). She told me she was considering selling because she didn’t really want to stay there by herself and her children wanted her to sell so she didn’t have to try to take care of a big old house by herself. At that point I told her that if she decided she did indeed want to sell we would like to look at the house when she was ready to take that step.
My husband and I prayed over the situation and left it in God’s hands. I did contact the owner’s daughter to let her know we were interested in looking at the house if her mom decided to sell just so that the rest family would know we had discussed the possibility with their mom.
Weeks went by before we heard anything. It was hard not to ask about it when I would see her but I also didn’t want her to feel pressured to consider selling if she wasn’t ready. Grieving takes time and it is a huge process to sell and move and all that. So we waited and prayed. Honestly I probably prayed a lot more than my husband did…he knew what the outside of the house looked like so the chances that the inside were better seemed slim. He’s a busy man and more projects aren’t really what he’s looking for.
I finally got a message from the daughter saying they would be at the house on a particular day if we wanted to come see it. I told her we did and asked her to make sure her siblings were on board before we got too involved in a potential purchase. We didn’t want there to be an instance of one of the kids not wanting her to sell and causing family drama or something, and we certainly wanted a family member to have first dibs if they wanted the house. So we agreed on a date to see the house. Then I prayed some more.
When the day finally came, I was a little nervous at what we would find. I had been mowing the lawn for the family for months but had never even stepped foot on their front porch, much less seen the inside of the house. Given the exterior condition of the house, I was cautiously optimistic at best. My husband and I went over and knocked on the door and went inside.
