...i could get bitter...

so i've written about moving to georgia in june. and we've been trying to sell our house for 90 something days.  one thing to know about central florida: it has the second highest foreclosure rate in the nation. (or so i've been told). what does that mean and how does that affect me? well, people all over the place down here can't afford their homes. and their homes are getting taken away by the bank. the market is drenched with homes in foreclosure or pre-foreclosure. people in this bind are doing something called a "short sale", which basically looks like the lender selling the house at a loss just to get rid of the home. they intentionally price under value to sell quickly.  the lender eats the difference after they make sure they've taken all savings, etc. from the borrower.  when these homes close, the market value of the homes around them are lowered because they sold at such a low price.  also, central florida had a large number of investors come down about 2 years ago and buy, buy, buy.  now there are more homes for sale than anyone needs... for example, there were 25, 724 homes for sale in orlando here in january.  there were 5500 new listings for the month.  AND (important to notice) only 756 sales closed in the month.  yikes.... the stats ain't so good...

so, my good friend, i'm sure this has you wondering how the heck this has affected us.  please let me fill you in. (trust me, i think about this ALOT and am glad to share). we bought our home 2 years ago, in the middle of the housing splurge.  we bought fairly high, and were even able to see our home increase in value over 100,000 in less than a year.  we were definitely proud of ourselves, thinking about the great investment we had made.  i mean, who wouldn't be pleased with an increase in value like that?? since that time, home prices have plummeted. most people who bought within the last two years are losing money if they sell right now. including us. which really stinks if you ask me.   today we reduced our price AGAIN, and we've now taken off 25,000 from our original asking price. momma ain't happy. a good number of the homes are now empty, and people are desperate to sell. so they are panicking and reducing dramatically. now if we actually intend to sell our home, we need to stay competitive. which means not sticking to a price even though we think the home is worth it.  because guess what?? they can and will find another seller desperate to sell who will take less.  

which leads me to the title of this post: i could get bitter. and i'm trying not to.  coming up with thousands of dollars to bring to a house closing (for a house we are SELLING no less) just doesn't quite fit the plan i had for our lives.  if God had said, "give 20,000 to this person or this organization" i probably wouldn't have been excited, but it makes more sense than wasting it at a closing table, no? i just don't "get" this. i'm not blaming God or anything- i mean we bought the house, but i would love to see him show up and fight for us in this.  i would have loved for him to have shown up today in the 11th hour before we reduced it 15,000 more. he could have had the people who looked at it at 12:30 today decide they couldn't live without it. bam! that would have been an amazing "God showing up" story just hours before it was scheduled to be reduced. but it didn't happen like that. dang it.

so we wait. another day. another day of cleaning up the random trails of papers, toys, and junk the girls leave everywhere. another day of vacuuming and dusting.  another day of scrubbing toilets and lighting candles.  another day of straightening and sorting.   another day of windexing mirrors and sliding glass doors. 

just a warning for my future visitors in georgia: expect to stay in a comfy, yet NOT NEAT home when you come to visit. i'm done with cleaning for a long, long time.