It Sold!

Yes, after 76 days on the market and two price markdowns, our wonderful Virginia home is under contract. It has taken much prayer and a lot of good hands to get the job done. We have worked many 12 hour days. Much of our furniture has been given to our children or sold on Craigslist, and there are still many large items to sell before moving day on Oct. 30. Vickie (photo to right), our astute, hard working real estate agent, has done a fabulous job marketing our home during this historically severe housing crisis. She has held an open house every other week and has run some fantastic ads. Lisa our lovely, energetic neighbor and creative professional decorator has been an inspirational encourager during the entire staging and selling process. She has even loaned us her plants and some appropriate home accessories for staging purposes. We also have had access to her pickup truck. Her friend Diane, has allowed us to store over 50 boxes of stuff in her basement. That meant that multiple ugly cardboard boxes have not been visible to potential buyers. Jim, our contractor, has been there when we needed him for required repairs. His prices are fair, he is a man of his word, and he and his crew have provided quality work no matter what the task.

It was during a recent open house that a wonderful Florida couple with grown children fell in love with our home. He is a CPA and recently came to Northern Virginia with a better job; she telecommutes for IBM. She says our house reminds her of her childhood home in PA. We could not accept their initial offer, so they decided to buy a smaller home in our subdivision. However, after it failed inspection, they came back to us with a better offer. God is good!

No longer do we have to be ready every minute for a prospect's tour of our house. We accepted less money than we would have gotten a year ago, but we bought our Texas home at a most reasonable price back in April. Besides, homes in the Greater Washington, DC Area are still going for about eight times more than they were in 1977 when we moved here. So after 30 years in the quaint Village of Vienna, and with wonderful memories of our four younger children growing up here and graduating from Madison High School, our natural scenic view of Tanglewood Community Park with its wide array of plants and wildlife will soon be history. There is an element of sadness about departing, but the Lord has called us to Texas. There we will have lower taxes, far less traffic and some extra money in the bank. Now we await our purpose for a new life in the Lone Star State.