Since he was 12 years old, my husband has dreamed of living on the lake. When we got married 10 years ago, it became a dream for both of us – a plan for our future together. Over the years, we’ve mentioned in passing how nice it will be to live on the lake “one day”. Well, that “one day” is now – we’re moving to the lake!
THE DREAM BECOMES A REALITY
Over the years, as the idea of moving to the lake became more of a plan than simply a dream, my husband and I decided it would be best to wait until my daughter graduates from high school to make the big move.
On Mother’s Day this year, my mom was over at our house and we were just chatting about random things, and the topic of moving to the lake came up, and my husband asked my mom if she had been serious when she mentioned wanting to move with us at one point in years past.
Let me back up…
My daughter, now 16 years old and heading into her junior year of high school, lives with her dad during the school year and comes to our house every other weekend. It’s not the ideal situation, but it’s more stability for her because of where we live. It’s a weird situation but it’s what works for us.
My mom has been widowed since my dad passed away when I was 19 and has never remarried. She’s lived on her own for 21 years now. Mom lives only 30 minutes from us right now, and she and I have a very close relationship. The thought of living more than an hour away from my mom hurts my heart.
Moving on…
Mom explained that yes, she would love to move with us to the lake when we decide to make that happen, then went on to explain that her investor, whom she meets with quarterly, recently told her that the real estate market is at it’s prime and won’t get much better over the next few years.
Long story short, we started looking for a lake house for real, not just to daydream about “one day”.
THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
Once we decided to make it official, we made a plan that went something like this:
- We’d start house hunting and hopefully find a house that fits our needs rather quickly, make an offer, and sign a contract.
- Mom would list her house in the meantime.
- We’d sell mom’s house and buy a lake house and all of us would then move to the lake.
- We’d list our house once it’s empty (read: dog-free and clean) and sell it.
Here’s what actually happened:
- May 16th: Our realtor friend came over to mom’s house to go over some things she could do prior to listing her house, talked pricing, etc.
- May 18th: Mark and I met with a realtor at the lake to see three houses. We fell in love with the first one we saw and quickly told mom to pick a day to come see it with us.
- May 21st: We took mom to the dream lake house, she loved it, we made an offer, and found out there was already another offer on the house so the realtor called for “highest and best”.
- May 24th: Mom’s house went on the market and she had 8 showings in 2 days, and 3 cash offers by the 26th. Woah.
- May 25th: Our offer was not accepted on the first house so we had to start over.
- May 28th: Mom’s house is officially under contract and off the market.
Fast forward to today. We have made a total of 7 trips to the lake (which means we drove 2 hours to the lake, looked at several homes each time, then 2 hours back). We looked at a total of 17 houses. We put offers on three houses. The first one, we were outbid. The second one was accepted, but the inspection report came back with way too many big issues to make it practical.
WE HAVE A WINNER
Our last trip to the lake to look at houses was Friday, June 8th. We looked at 4 houses, and of those, 1 of them fit pretty much all of our criteria. However, it was listed at quite a bit more than our budget would allow.
But, we made an offer anyway. The seller countered, and we countered back with our highest and best offer, and he ACCEPTED IT!! We are at the top of our budget, but not over it. The house is AMAZING and it’s on deep water!
The inspection was done last week and we got the report back the next day. Other than a few things we already knew about, and accounted for in our offer, the house passed with flying colors!
AND NOW WE PREP TO MOVE
Our closing is scheduled for July 3rd, so guess what we’ll be doing over the 4th of July holiday?
Right now we are busy packing up the house, selling the stuff we won’t be moving, and fixing up some things on our current house to prep it to be listed after we move out.
We hope this will be our forever home, and that would be fine by me because moving is no fun, I don’t care how fantastic the new house is!
I can’t wait to share all the details and pictures of the new house after we get moved in! It’s going to be awesome!!
KEEP READING:
