You Know You're Having a True Real Esate Adventure When . . .

Your realtor tells you yours was the case study for the “Intricacies of Buying Rural Properties” class. Intricacies is such a . . . diplomatic word.

It takes three banks to find underwriting for an unusual property with no comps.

The standard length of time for an appraisal is 45 days.

The official records show buildings on the property that don’t exist.

It’s For Sale by Owner. (Thankfully we have had a wonderful realtor who has helped both sides the process along).

Showings before we had our house officially on the market.

The assessed tax value for the property we’re buying is over two times the sale price.

Prepping a home of a family of seven to be show-ready!

You’re buying a property in the “wild, wild west” where no building permits were required during construction!

Three or four showings scheduled within the first hours of listing.

Coordinating inspections and surveys while living 8 hours away.

Owner lives 2000 miles away.

Four days from listing to contract on our Greeley home.

You’re buying an “as is” property.

The kids and I had been at the nearby park while a prospective buyer was at our house. After what I thought was a reasonable length of time, we returned to find some people with our house info in hand, looking at the house from inside their vehicle.

“Are you our five o’clock showing?’ I asked.

“Uh. . . No . . . “they replied.

“Well, do you want to see the house?” I asked.

“Yes. Is that OK?”

As I began to show them our house, the real estate agent (not ours) was wrapping up the scheduled showing.

A couple of hours later we had an offer followed by a contract later that evening. Which was it? The people from scheduled showing performed by the professional? Or the folks of the street shown around by little old me? Yep, you guessed it - the folks off the street are our buyers!

It will have been eight months from initial call to closing on the place we’re buying.

You have your selling and buying perfectly coordinated . . . until an appraisal goes awry and you find you have inadvertently sold your house out from under yourself.

The craziness requires three extensions to the contract.

Shingles. Not on the roof; on the side of your torso making even the thought of mere movement painful.

You try to coordinate work (for Todd) and school transitions when you don’t know WHEN you’re transitioning!

In short, the pattern has been coming up to a wall thinking “Well, that’s the end of that!” only for the bricks in the wall to rearrange themselves into an opening. There has been a lot of hurry-up-and-wait and how-will-that-work and what-ifs and maybe-we-shoulds . . .  and are-we-crazy??!! But we keep praying about it and have decided to trust the Way Maker. That, after all, is the greatest adventure.