This is easily going to be my favorite post from the “Charleston-Bound” series. Because I truly thought it was one I was never going to get to type! You can read part 1 HERE and part 2 HERE to catch up if you don’t know what I’m talking about. In the last post, I left things off by sharing that our house was officially LISTED for sale! After months of talking about potentially moving, touring homes and constant back and forth, it felt officially official that our house was on the market!!! We were all so confident that our house was going to sell quickly. It was well-priced, newly-updated in almost every, beautifully decorated and on a large piece of land for our neighborhood. But, to cut to the chase…it didn’t. At all. We had showings every single week, sometimes multiple showings with the same family, but absolutely no offers. We didn’t even get any constructive feedback! Everyone that saw the house LOVED it…but no one wanted to buy it. Come to find out, there were over 50 houses for sale in our neighborhood at the same time. WHEW.

As the weeks passed with stressful showing after stressful showing, we all got so discouraged. For every showing, we had to obviously deep clean the entire house…but we also had to empty it: all 5 of us and 2 dogs. It was HARD. At the start of the process, we all said “let’s give it a month. If nothing happens in a month, we will start to reconsider”. Well…a month went by and absolutely nothing happened. Showings started to slow down and we were all so sad. It was now almost June, and if we didn’t have an offer by July, we were going to take the house off of the market. We wanted my little sister to get to register for her first year of high school (whether in VA or SC!) and not have to move in the middle of her first year. So, if the house hadn’t sold before the time for registration, we’d be staying in VA for another year and trying again next summer (maybe).

As all of this is happening, I had already booked Joshua Bryan Cinema for film a huge promo video for me to announce the Charleston move. We went down in late May, and we had absolutely zero offers on the house. I started to doubt whether I should even go film this promo at all! I was spending tons of money and time on this project and was SO excited about it. I was terrified to film it all and then just never even be able to share it! I almost called the entire thing off. But, I ultimately decided that I was going to have a hopeful perspective and do it all anyway. We went down to Charleston and filmed THIS entire video and project with NO offers on the house. I genuinely thought the video was never going to see the light of day!!! But, we had the BEST freaking trip ever. We took so many pics and behind-the-scenes memories that I never got to share! So I’m sharing them now!!!

SO grateful for Nicki Paige for modeling, putting this shoot together with me and already being such an amazing friend in CHS!!

Josh’s first time in Charleston!!! Needless to say…he loved it.

10/10 recommend Poogan’s Porch brunch and Felix for dinner. GET THE BURGER. IT’LL CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

That time I paid to rent a vintage car…and didn’t read the fine print that you had to be 25 to drive it. HAHAH! Nicki came to the rescue and drove us around all day so we could still film with it!!! Bless her heart!

OBVIOUSLY we squeezed in some shopping at the market!!!

When I got home from this trip, I came down from the high of having such a fun time and reality started to hit. Still zero offers on the house. My mom and I had a sit down conversation and had to both pray really hard for peace no matter what was going to happen. We felt SO strongly that we were being called to move to Charleston, but it just wasn’t falling into place. We both had our hearts set on moving…and we were both struggling with the idea that it seriously may not happen. That night, we both prayed and submitted to God that we were okay with WHATEVER was supposed to happen, because He knows best and has a bigger plan than we could ever figure out ourselves. If we weren’t meant to move to Charleston, we knew there was a reason…no matter how hard that was to process. I literally saved this quote to Pinterest that night to remind myself to re-center and trust that God had already gone ahead and paved the plan, even if it didn’t align with my own:

Ya’ll, I kid you not…THE NEXT MORNING, everything changed. My mom, sister and I had a pool day planned. As we were about to head out, my mom said “I’m going to go grab the mail”! But, I happened to see out the window that she didn’t walk to the mailbox…she just walked down the other side of the driveway and was on the phone. My family calls me “radar ears” (HAHA), because they can’t keep secrets from me. I always end up hearing or finding everything out! It makes me so hard to surprise. So, when I saw her on the phone, I IMMEDIATELY knew something was up with the house. But, I also knew that she didn’t want my little sister to find out, because she didn’t want to get her hopes up just to be let down. So, I snuck out onto the front porch to eavesdrop (horrible, I know) and I overheard “okay, so if we get a second offer this weekend, how do we handle that?”

GUYS. I almost peed. After 45 days on the market, WE HAD AN OFFER ON THE FREAKIN HOUSE!!!! It was almost as if God was waiting for us to say “hey, we trust you no matter what” for Him to show us that He had it handled all along.

I had to keep it SO cool and not say anything or act excited at all, but kept sneaking out onto the front porch on and off for the entire 30 minute phone call. My mom saw my sneak out at one point and just started dying laughing because she knew that I knew – haha!!! When she got off I just ran up to her SCREAMING and jumping up and down. She couldn’t tell me anything until we weren’t around my sister…BUT WE HAD AN OFFER!!!

We dropped my sister off at a friend’s house and headed to the pool. The offer was for the full price of the house…but it was contingent on the buyer selling their house. Not ideal, but we couldn’t have cared less! We were just so excited things were in motion! But, my dad was out of town and my brother was gone…so we had to share the news. We called my dad and he immediately started sobbing…which made me start sobbing!! After weeks and weeks of stress and let down…it was finally happening!!! Here’s a selfie of us at the pool to document the joy of us getting an offer!

The video below is my favorite video of ALL. TIME. My little sister Abby was the MOST excited to move…and the most disappointed that we didn’t have an offer. Even though my dad was out of town, he wanted to be the one to tell her… so we waited until she got home to let him FaceTime her. And I secretly recorded it! Tell me this doesn’t just tug on your heart strings!!!

All dressed up for a celebratory dinner that night!!!! Outback bacon and cheese fries are basically the ONLY way to celebrate. Duh.

But, the drama wasn’t done! The next day, my dad was back in town and we were sitting down to sign and accept the offer we received. During the time he was traveling home, we got a SECOND offer on the house. But, it was also contingent – which again, isn’t ideal, because you have to wait for the buyer’s house to sell before anything can move forward. But, we didn’t care! We were just so excited. We chose the better of the two offers, and we were all sitting around the table with our realtor signing papers. I kid you not, AS my dad was signing, our realtor got a phone call. And this time, the offer was non-contingent…meaning the entire process would move faster. It was a full price, non-contingent offer that would set our closing date only 30 days away. SAY WHAT. I SEE YOU JESUS.

We accepted the non-contingent offer and everything was signed. OUR HOUSE WAS SOLD!!! And, the best part about the timing of all of this? You aren’t going to even believe this…

The house we had fallen in love with when we toured homes in Charleston was still on the market. Out of ALL of the homes we saw…it was the only one left. In the time we were waiting for our house to sell, the price had been lowered to within my parent’s budget. But, the craziest of all? We were not going to be able to put an offer on the house unless we received a non-contingent offer on ours. Because we received that 3rd non-contingent offer as my dad was signing the papers…we were able to put an offer in on the house in Charleston the same day.

The owner of the house in Charleston received a second offer the SAME day as ours. After being on the market for almost 300 days.

He chose our offer.

We got the house.

But, I’m not done…

When the family who purchased our home came to tour it, a family emergency happened that resulted in them having to pull their contract.

We all panicked. We thought we were going to have to pull the contract on our dream house in Charleston.

We contacted the other two families who had initially put offers on our house, and one still wanted the house, so she submitted a new contract on our house the same day. We had a new buyer in less than 12 hours.

And, guess what? Her house has sold in the mean time. Her offer didn’t have to be contingent anymore.

Look at that timing.

Look at God.

This is literally a selfie I took that morning when I found out we got the house in Charleston:

And, ya’ll…as this post is going live, my parents and sister ARE ON THEIR WAY TO MOVE IN!!!! I have a wedding this weekend, so I’ll be moving on Sunday. In 3 days, I’ll be moving into my family’s dream home in Mount Pleasant…and I’m completely consumed with joy and gratitude. God is so, so good.

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