The Waiting Game

Days went by and we didn’t hear anything. I started to wonder if our neighbor had changed her mind about the house. Just in case she hadn’t changed her mind we got an estimate for replacing the roof and front porch, both in need of complete restoration. We weren’t surprised when the estimates came back at $13,000 and $9,000 respectively. We also knew the windows would need replacement and the exterior needed paint or new siding. That was just the outside stuff.

We finally got a call that the family would be at the house one Saturday afternoon. I had plans that day but my husband was available so he went over to see what they had to say. He got the offer and told them that he and I would need to talk it over. I ended up getting back before the neighbor and her family left so I asked if we could come back over. My husband gave me a heads up on the price they were asking and we confirmed what our counter offer would be. We prayed and asked God to open doors if it were the right move and close them if it wasn’t.

We came in and the daughter I had been communicating with said they had talked it over and wanted $20,000 for the house. I asked if they were okay with us looking at the house again and the family agreed. So we looked again, although we knew we for sure wanted to buy it, just not at $20,000.

We came back downstairs and I told the family that while we didn’t want to offend them, we were really only willing to offer $10,000 for the house. Given the condition of the house and the large repairs that were needed right away it we needed to be able to not only pay for the house but the repairs as well. We try to avoid credit, so our goal was to pay cash for everything. Because we hadn’t actually been planning on buying a house when this one came up, we had exactly zero towards the cost of the house and all the repairs. The family was gracious and said they would consider the offer and let us know.

Needless to say, when we got home we prayed and asked God for guidance in the process and for financial resources to pay for what we needed to do.