Our Dream Coming True?!

The reason we moved to Missouri was to fulfill our family's dream of living on land, growing an orchard and a garden, enjoying peace and privacy in the country, perhaps owning some animals for meat and dairy and having the room to let the kids roam free.

We've suffered through apartment life to acclimate ourselves to the area and have the chance to shop around for the perfect piece of land and to get financing in order. The plan was to live in the apartment for six months while shopping around, toward the end of November find a place and make an offer, then move in at the end of December when our lease expired.

Getting financing was tricky business. After being flatly denied, "No loan, no way!" we were deflated but not crushed. We talked with the kids about praying that we would have a miracle happen in our family. The kids took the challenge of praying very seriously. One day, we received pre-approval loan papers in the mail from a local bank Rhyetta talked to. The next day, Rhyetta called another local bank and received hopeful news regarding an even better loan. As we continued to pray for a miracle, we received one. We were pre-approved! This news was shared with the kids, and with gratitude in our hearts for this miracle, a new challenge was given to our family: to find a house that would fit our needs. With the pre-approval in our hands, we took house/land hunting more seriously. The Friday after Thanksgiving we really wanted to spend the day looking at properties and eventually found ourselves in the office of a real estate agent in Cameron, Missouri, about an hour's distance from our current dwelling but about the same distance (30 miles) from Matt's work. We had done our research and found several intriguing properties which we e-mailed to him. He was going to set up the appointments so we could look inside. Property after property he tossed aside and told us, "This one's no good." What started out as a pile of seven possible showings, was now only a short stack of three! Then it felt like he was trying to sell us a house in the city of Cameron "that was a GOOD deal" he told us. "Does it have land?" I asked. When he replied that it did not, I frankly assured him that we were not interested. I was really not liking this guy.

We sat there for an hour while he made appointments for the last three listings. (Wasn't he supposed to have done this BEFORE we got there?) Towards the end of our meeting, he told us he knew of a property we might like but was under contract. "Let me just show you anyway on the computer." Then he noticed that the contract was pending over 30 days. He noted that was strange and called on it. Oh! The contract fell through. The property was available even though it had not yet been re-listed. He asked us if we wanted to see it. Sure, why not?!

We toured a small house on 3 acres right next to a trailer park and on a busy road that was for sale for $119,000. No, it didn't feel right. We didn't like the location. As we drove further down the country road, we noticed we had been looking in this area when we first moved to Missouri and that there were other properties we had looked at online on the same road. We turned onto a gravel road and then turned onto a private driveway lined with forest, past a pond with wild ducks and we started smiling. "I like this, Matt! I love the tree-lined driveway and the privacy!" It only got better from there. The acreage! Ten acres of wooded forest, deciduous trees and evergreens, a "creek" (or ditch) full of junk which was a specific request of Kian's--that it have junk on the property!--a large backyard clearing for a place to play and garden, even trails through the woods! Matt, my brother Warren (who happened to be visiting at the time and came along with us) and I knew we liked what we were seeing!

Then we went inside the house! It was new! It had a big kitchen with a pantry and an island and red walls! In the dining room was a mural with deer, ducks, and a forest paradise! It had a laundry room! There were three large bedrooms and two bathrooms with nice clean and new carpet throughout. The rooms were painted very tastefully, a different color in each room, like sage green and beige and such.

The greatest part of all? It was in foreclosure--which meant the bank just wanted to get rid of it as soon as it could. It had previously sold for $125,000 so we could offer much lower and still have a chance! I didn't want to "fall in love" with a piece of land. I wanted to be very careful and smart about the whole house-buying process, but this house and land were so very wonderful that we could not deny it spoke to us!

We visited it once more with the kids who loved it. They loved running around outside, watching the ducks on the pond, swinging on the swing set and studying the junk in the creek/ditch. So, we made an offer. The bank countered with their offer. We countered back. And we finally agreed on $118,500! We know this is the best deal in the entire area. The land is so beautiful, we really can't believe it is at such a low price!

Now comes the waiting. We are praying all things go smoothly: the inspection and the financing and all that jazz. Oh, do you want to see pictures? Okay, here they are! The exterior of the house and garage (oh did I forget to mention there is a HUGE two-car garage) are metal which is not the most attractive exterior but it is all so new and the inside is really, really nice. Nothing a little landscaping can't fix!