To Do: Buy a House & Sell a House

Are you addicted to House Hunters on HGTV like I am?

It's so fun to look at houses...well, until you have to pick one to live in within a day!  

But for us, it's no big deal.  We made the trek to Peoria about a month ago with the intention of buying a house.  My grandpa's funeral occurred the same weekend, which meant we really did only have the one day to find that Home Sweet Home.  

This is our 5th house in 8.5 years.  Yep, we are pros!  We both were a little more nervous this time though, as we think we will be living here for awhile.  And thanks to the internet, house shopping is a little easier.  But--the Peoria are housing market is insane!  Just a day before we arrived, it was featured on the Today show as the #6 town in the nation to watch for a booming housing market--Go figure!  So needless to say, it's a seller's market.  We had picked out about 10 houses for the realtor to show us.  She started setting up appointments on Tuesday.  Wednesday she called to tell us that several had already sold.  By the time we got there Thursday, all of them in Dunlap were sold and only about 3 on our list were still available.  We searched the inventory again and came up with more options (more like 2nd choices).  But even after all that research, we somehow had both failed to see one certain house.

We ended up looking at 7 houses that day.  Guess which one we bought?  The first one!  

And ready for the best part?  Our address:

And No--It's not 123.  Our lenders, utility companies, realtor, etc. have sure gotten a kick out of it though!  (The house backs up to a new elementary school so I'm sure the builder thought this would be cute).  The house is in the town of Dunlap, which is growing like crazy.  These now city-kids are excited that it is just minutes from Wal-Mart and the new outdoor mall.  

And ironically, our relocation point person said she just got another CAT employee who moved to that street and I have found out that a former GS employee (she came after I left) lives just 5 houses down!

So, buying a house is the fun part.  Selling, not so much! But...

I know!  I know!  We are lucky ducks.  

We are super excited about this house selling--because we sold it to some friends.  Dick (who works with Matt and is originally from Decatur) and his wife purchased our house as their first house.  

It truly is a house that both Matt and I adore and we are thrilled that it will be in good hands.  We wish them years and years of happiness here.

2 weeks from today we will officially be Yankees again.  Headed back to one of those I states (yep, Sally, that was for you!)  Ready or not, here we come!