Tag Archives: house for sale

It’s official: We got an offer on the house last night — May 28.

This sale was not without drama. Stepping out and looking at the situation objectively, we went into the situation wearing rose-colored glasses. Both financially and to meet our travel plans, we needed an immediate sale. Since the Seattle housing market is so hot, I believed we would get that immediate sale, and so I didn’t really make a Plan B.

Last week, after missing our May 20 departure date and as we approached one month on the market, our realtor pushed to drop the price. This annoyed me for several reasons, not the least of which was that we had gotten ZERO push-back on the price of the house. The push-back was about distance from town, not price, something we couldn’t fix.

Jay and I talked, and we talked about what would happen if the house didn’t sell. What finally sunk in was that by doing this huge remodel, we had thrown ourselves from having a mortgage and no other debt to being BURIED in debt. If we didn’t sell SOON we would have to move back in. Could we afford it? Yes, but it would take all of our monthly income just to cover the debt and expenses — with nothing left for unexpected things, and that’s not a comfortable way to live.

The problem was lowering the price would eat the profit we were counting on — so much so that even going to Mexico was at risk. Basically, we were looking at drowning in debt or being broke. Not a great choice.

We lowered the price.

I wasn’t happy. This wasn’t what I had planned. I wasn’t trying to bankrupt my family. I didn’t want to give up our home and get nothing for it.

“Let’s pull it off the market,” I told Jay. “I want to go home. We’ll try again in a few years when we have more equity and have paid down some of the debt.”

He agreed. But it was Sunday evening, and we didn’t want to both our realtor at home. “Call him in the morning.”

We didn’t get a chance. That was yesterday, and last night he called us with an offer. Jay crunched the numbers. We could make it to Mexico. We would be close to broke, but debt-free, and we would be in a country where we could probably bank a lot of savings.

We accepted the offer. If all goes well, the house closes on June 28, and we leave for Mexico on July 28.

It’s… bittersweet. After deciding to go home, I was sorry to get the offer. (I know that sounds weird.) The excitement has gone out of the plan, at least for now. But Mexico will enable us to rebuild our safety net, and “debt-free” is very enticing.

There’s much to do, but I’m pretty sure we just overcame the biggest hurdle standing between us and our life of travel.