sold!!!!

WE SOLD THE HOUSE!

It's exciting and sad and scary and amazing all at the same time! We are in complete shock that it sold in just two short weeks.. listed on May 14 and contracts signed May 31.
Here's a recap of the process...

After speaking with our Realtor, Bonnie Kennedy (we knew her in Ahwatukee), we decided to list the house a price we thought we could get. We would give it a week and see what kind of action we got. After a week we had no interest and decided to reduce the price a bit and not lose any more time. That brought in several showings. None of them seemed right until I got a call from a realtor saying she had a client that was really interested and she was a cash buyer. Whoa! She became our top priority! They toured the house and then the kids and I came home to have lunch. In the middle of lunch, they called back and wanted to come through again! I started to panic trying to clean up the kitchen and they said "don't worry, we're already here and she loves your home, she's seen six others and she loves yours, you can just go out back and we'll be really quick". As they were leaving, I came in to say goodbye and met Crystal. She had a lot of questions about the schools, bus stops and the neighborhood. In some strange way she seemed very familiar. She even saw Kaisha on the patio and thought she knew her somehow! Anyway, she told me a little bit of her situation: she just lost her husband of 16 yrs a year ago in a car accident and decided to start fresh in a new home with her new boyfriend and his son (they knew each other growing up and he had also lost his fiancé a couple years ago to cancer). She and her husband didn't have children, so she was left with a huge empty home and a ton of money. She loved our home and especially loved the large backyard/lot. She wanted her boyfriend to come and look when he was back in town. I knew, after meeting her, that she was the one! I just knew it. I immediately called Bonnie after they left to report. We knew she needed to really work this opportunity. Crystal and her realtor called again to have the boyfriend walk through and we could tell he fell in love with it - especially the garage! We had several other showings during this time, and one guy actually said that our 4.5 car garage wasn't big enough. The nerve!

And then the offer came from Crystal - all cash! She wanted our fridge and washer/dryer included. We countered at a higher amount to include those. She came back at her same amount without the appliances. We knew that we didn't want to move the washer/dryer, so we countered again with just those and a higher amount. Bonnie worked her magic and got us the deal! Then the inspection was scheduled and wasn't too bad, as the home is brand new. The builder is taking care of all the inspection issues for us and Crystal. What a complete blessing.

We know that we could have made more money on this home if we'd had more time. We chose to be aggressive so that we weren't apart for too long. And that has really paid off. John moved out on Mother's Day... and we'll be moving to California on Father's Day!

Now, John had better get cracking on finding us a rental!