Closing the Door

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The last few days have been like white water rafting through some of the most intense emotions humans can have. It’s like being tripped by that mean kid in elementary school and then kicked in the stomach by a member of the women’s Olympic soccer team. We’ve gone from gleefully bickering over where we would put both Christmas trees to preparing our goodbyes to our dream home.

Here’s what happened:

When we put an offer on this house, the bank had an estimated assessment to do all the necessary repairs to get the house up to code. Once we found out we were in a multiple offer situation, we took a leap of faith and offered our max. Unfortunately, after having several city inspectors and contractors walk through the property, the bank estimate is nowhere close to what we were told. In fact, it’s a whopping $25,000 - $30,000 over the original estimate. 

What does this mean? It means we are most likely walking away from our house and a hefty “good faith” deposit that we can’t get back.  My mother keeps telling me that in the grand scheme of things, several thousand dollars is peanuts compared to $30,000, but it’s hard to swallow this when you’re abandoning something you love.

Yes, it’s just a house; some bricks, beams and drywall (that probably all had to be replaced, but that’s beside the point). But it was where we saw our future, the place we wanted to call home for the next 30 years. And that feeling just doesn’t come with every house you look at. It just doesn't.

Is there still hope? Sure, there’s always hope. And by golly, I hope that in a few days, I’m writing that a miracle happened and we are going to be The Williams on Westwood for a long, long time.

So I apologize if the last few posts have been total downers. But it wouldn’t be fair to gloss over, to Josh and I, nor to you.

Crossing my fingers and my toes (and everything inside that won’t cause permanent damage if I do) that things work out in the way I want them to. But if not, we’ll shed some more tears and eat Ben and Jerry’s. Lots of it.