As I said in Part 1, our go “live” goal was May 1. Realtor had explained the perfect formula: go “live” on Wednesday or Thursday to get the word out and have an open house on the weekend to get the biggest bang. Continuing repairs and parts on order and we weren’t ready for pictures until Friday, May 19. Realtor says we go ‘live” the next day anyway. I guess the perfect formula was out the window. We were all anxious to get this show on the road.

We were barely “live” by the start of the open house. That very afternoon we were struck by how little information flowed our way after the open house. How had it gone? That afternoon we got 3 requests for showing the next day. Problem was, the next day was our youngest son’s 18^th birthday. It is a royal pain to prep a house to be shown when you are living in it, especially when you are living in it with a teenager and 2 dogs and 2 cats. I told the first realtor they could come the next morning. I told the next 2 realtors that they could come at the same time as the first rather than at their requested times – I did explain the birthday thing. We only had one showing the next day, the 2 realtors I put off declined to come. We were annoyed.  They probably were too.

The next weekend was Memorial Day weekend. We had NO requests for showings. By the end of the weekend, I was sure we would never sell our house. We were panicked.

The following weekend we went out of town, returning early Sunday, just in case. We ended up having several back-to-back showings that day. We were hopeful.

Late on the next day, Monday, we got an offer. We were elated! The first page of the offer was a delightful letter from the young family who hoped to buy our house and they eloquently described all the features of our home that they loved (as did we) and how their growing family of 2 toddlers and a baby on the way would grow and thrive in our home. It brought tears to my eyes. I wanted to sell to this family. Then we read the important details: they were offering 80% of our asking price. We were crest-fallen. Then sick. Then pissed.

We intended to ignore this offer. Realtor suggested we counter. We suggested that we would sleep on it. Next morning Realtor said to hold on – we might have another offer coming in. We were cautiously optimistic.

Early that evening, we received a second offer at better than 95% of asking price. We were ecstatic. The offer was contingent on buyer selling their house (which was not yet on the market), and Realtor convinced us that at our price point that would likely be the case with any buyer and that we could continue to market our house and if we got a better offer we could send our buyer packing. So we were under contract with a “bumpable” buyer. We were happy.

Then came inspections. I don’t want to go through the gory details. Suffice it so say inspections are, from the buyer’s perspective terrifying, and from the seller’s perspective over-done, nit-picky, and expensive. We got through it and still felt reasonably OK with our deal.

Then came the buyer’s deadline for selling their house, which they hadn’t. Then came buyer’s receipt of an offer, which they declined. Then we moved on; we started over. We were devastated. We had wasted 7 weeks of prime summer selling time.

Then came two weekends of open houses, a price drop, and another weekend of open houses. On the Saturday of the last weekend, we bought our dream house in Memphis (see House Saga – Buying yet to come). We decided to move to Memphis whether we sold our house or not.

The following Monday, we received an offer – full price, cash. We were elated. It was meant to be. Committing to the Memphis house was clearing manifesting our destiny and the universe responded with a cash offer. I have learned to talk that way from my yogi daughter who refers to herself as a hippie and a fairy, and in this case I believed it. We were flying high.

Then came the end of the inspection period, and our cash buyer walked. We were shell-shocked.

Next day Realtor said our first buyer was back, they had an offer they were willing to accept if we accepted a new price. We took it on the condition there would be no more inspection business. The inspection and repairs already done earlier in the summer would stand. They agreed. We were, in the words of my Hubby, “Ready for this circus to end.” Amen.

There were hurdles – our deal was contingent on their deal closing. Their deal had to get through the inspection business. Both houses had to pass appraisal. They had to accept the repairs we had done for them. Each of those hurdles was individually passed, with our corresponding angst and relief. Closing was to be on October 12. Buyer’s deal closed on October 12. We packed our U-Haul on October 10. We hung around our empty house and signed on October 11. Escrow is awaiting some final loan docs. They don’t come in. We turn off the water and drive away on October 12 in the afternoon. There is no point in sitting in an empty house any longer – this is out of our hands.

We are now 1000 miles away from “home” with about 1500 miles to go. Loan docs did not come in on Friday, the 13^th, so now we wait until Monday, in limbo. Buyer has released their earnest money to us in an effort to show their confidence that all will be well. We declined to give them occupancy (“just to the garage”) until the deal is done. We are exhausted by this process, in a constant state of anxiety over it, and clearly older and greyer than when it began.