July 2017 marks the 5 year anniversary of our move to Dublin. Over the next few months I’m writing a few posts to share about that journey. You can keep up with all posts in this series here.

House Hunting in Trumansburg Round 1
By January 2011, Ireland was off the table, so we began looking for a house in Trumansburg. We had decided about a year earlier that we were going to sell our home and move to Trumansburg.

Weird House Experience #1
In fact in the spring of 2010 we were under contract to sell our house. We had even signed a contract on a house in Trumansburg. Then,  before our trip to Ireland our realtor (Grace) told us the sale of our house had fallen through. This was only the second time something like this had ever happened to her. So our house was back on the market.

The house we almost bought in Trumansburg

The sellers of the house we’d made an offer on were willing to work with us so that we could still buy their home. It didn’t seem like the right thing to do, so we backed out of (even though it had an outdoor jacuzzi).

This was not the first insane thing that had happened to us during this process of house hunting in Trumansburg.

Weird House Experience #2

The first house we tried to buy in Tburg.

The day sold (we thought) our house in Ithaca, we were in Grace’s office to sign the papers. We told her we wanted to make an offer on a home that had been on the market for over 6 months.

In the middle of that conversation, she receives a phone call saying that house had just gone off the market.

Weird House Experience #3

There was another house I really liked…but it would have stretched our budget. We eventually agreed on a price, and scheduled an inspection.

I still love this house.

Things were looking good, although  we did find a couple of things that we were going to ask them to fix. We were in the basement wrapping up  getting a stamp of approval…until someone used the toilet upstairs.

Water began pouring through the side wall of the basement.

We told the owner we wanted that fixed.

They said no. Since we were pushing our budget to buy this place, we couldn’t afford to fix it. We walked away.

Weird House Experience #4
There was a house with a strange floor plan…the whole upstairs was a master bed and bath, with a side office. It was nice, but not ideal for us. It was also on the market for months. Liz and I were out for dinner one night and decided, that we could make that house work. I got up to call Grace, pulled out my phone and there was a text saying that house had just gone off the market.

Grace asked if we’d make offers on houses she was trying to sell, because that seemed to be the only way houses were selling.

That’s when we put an offer in on the house I mentioned earlier. Once that fell through, we decided to wait until after Ireland to start looking again.

House Hunting in Trumansburg Round 2
In January 2011 we contacted Grace and said we were ready to look again. One Saturday we visited 3 different places. Two of them were definite noes.

The third had actually been on the market for 6 months and had just dropped in price by $50,000.

Weird House Experience #5
That meant it was now in our range. We all agreed it would be a great fit for us, and Grace was surprised by how reasonably priced it was.

However, two other families were viewing the house that day. They were both making offers.

We drove to Grace’s office, made an offer $10,000 over the asking price and went home to wait.

A few hours later we heard back…we had made the highest offer!

Someone else offered cash…the seller took the cash.

Major Funk
There was nothing else in our price range that was a fit.

And I went into a major funk. For a few weeks I’d wake up on a Saturday morning, have breakfast, and go back to bed until dinner. With the series of weird things going on, it seemed like there was something going on…but I had no idea what it was.

Eventually I took time to pray and fast…and asked some friends if they’d pray as well. I asked them pray that we’d understand what God was saying to us.

I wasn’t thinking about Ireland. That had been settled. It was more about whether God wanted us to buy at all. Or if something else was going on.

We’d soon learn that something else was going on.

(PS – Our realtor for this was Grace McMenamin and she is amazing!)