One step closer!

Happy, happy!!! Joy, joy!! We are so excited that we are now officially under contract on the house we wanted!

So here is how things went down...

Monday morning, our realtor submitted our offer (even though we were ready Saturday, Fannie Mae does not work over the weekends). She's also really good about keeping us informed... so she told me that she called the selling agent to confirm that they received our offer (which they did). However, the interesting thing that worried me at the time was that the selling agent said she had 52 new emails when she got to work that morning- many of which were concerning the same house!! All I could think about was that it meant we were most likely going to go into a bidding war. I found myself trying not to get too excited about the house so that if we didn't get it, then I wouldn't be as disappointed... do you ever find yourself doing that?

Then on Tuesday, our realtor called again and said that they needed a letter stating that we did not own any property in the United States to help prove that we are not investors. The letter had to be from us with our legal names written and signed. (Side note: Fannie Mae rather sell their property to residents rather than investors who would flip the house. So when they put a house on the market, they usually have a time frame this is initially only open to residential buyers. After that time, if they haven't received an offer they like, then it's open for investors). I asked our realtor if this was a good sign but all she could say was "you never know and they will never say" and that we just needed to "continue to sit tight".

Then on Wednesday, the Fannie Mae agent received our paperwork (aparently this is a different person from the selling agent) and that ours was the first one he had received on that house so far. Our realtor also said that she knew the Fannie Mae agent and that she had a good rapport with him (good for us so she could make sure, in her words, that "we don't get ran into the ground." i.e. that we don't get lost through all the paperwork)... but we still didn't know anything outside of that.

Then Friday, our realtor called at about 4:00 pm and said they couter offered on the house! Can you imagine my happiness to hear that they did NOT just ask for our best offer and that we did NOT have to go into a bidding war!!!! PRAISE THE LORD! A huge thank you to our realtor too for being proactive with all of this... she called Fannie Mae on Friday to check up on things and there was a counter offer "sitting in the computer system" waiting to be dealt with the following week.

Boy did that week of waiting seem like an eternity! In fact, earlier this week I thought about how I have been doing a lot of "waiting" over the last few months. (Think God is trying to teach me something?) It goes all the way back to the beginning of the summer... waiting to hear if Nathan got a promotion...waiting to sell our house back in Texas...waiting to live under the same roof as my husband again (longest 2 1/2 months of my life!)...waiting to hear about the house here in Atlanta... do you see the pattern too? It never fails that God is faithful.

Picture will be coming soon...