No Sale Like Home

We sold our house today. For the full asking price. In this market. (I know!)

What I find very strange is that about a week ago, our agent contacted us to let us know that it had been on the market for 30 days, and no offers yet (which, of course, we knew), and this is what issues people had with the property, and this is what other agents are saying, and blah blah blah, and I started to think, That's it. It's never going to sell. It's been unoccupied since November of last year, and it will just continue to be unoccupied until we give up and move back in, because why the hell are we paying for this house while living in a converted basement 11 miles away?

But in a strange moment of clarity, I realized that I have enough italicized worries as it is. I decided that if six months (or nine months, or twelve months) passed and nothing had changed, I'd deal with it then. You know, that wacky bridge-crossing-when-you-come-to-it sort of mindset.

So I had just decided not to think about the house, and I actually managed to forget about it for one whole day when we got an offer. And then we made a counter offer. And then the buyer accepted our counter offer and holy shit we're actually going to sell our house!

Part of me feels like this is a step backwards: we're not homeowners any more. Owning our house was one thing we were getting right, financially speaking. And while I didn't like where we were living at all, it's like the last piece of our pre-baby married life is disappearing. We didn't even live there two years, but so many memories of the house are brightly-colored, sitcom-worthy romps through married life: couple sees the house empty for the first time after signing mountains of paperwork, and make out in the empty living room; couple sits on office chairs and eats delivered pizza at a folding card table for weeks because they don't have any furniture; couple plays countless games of Scrabble that all end in ties...

Which is not to say that selling the house isn't fantastic. It is. Even if only because this means that I will never again be eight months pregnant and hiking up that steep-ass hill after walking home from the bus stop. Never again.

I'm kind of looking forward to the mountain of paperwork that I'll have to sign soon.

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