{"id":44442,"date":"2017-03-15T22:50:58","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T02:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=44442"},"modified":"2020-07-30T22:51:08","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T02:51:08","slug":"november-22-2004-march-15-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=44442","title":{"rendered":"November 22, 2004 \u2013 March 15, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been keeping it quiet since it began snowballing, but me being me, I didn\u2019t want to jinx anything and wanted to wait until it was basically a forgone conclusion before I did any sort of writing or talking about it in any sort of fashion.\u00a0 It has been no secret that Jen and I worked our asses off a little while back in preparation for putting our house up on the market, and that less than two weeks ago, our house officially went up on the market.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, just like that, the process has ended as frantically and as quickly as it started.\u00a0 In the span of barely 13 days, my listed home was given numerous offers, one was selected, the buyer initiated inspections and the closing process, and today, I\u2019m on the cusp of turning over the keys and signing over the title to the house to its new owners.<\/span><\/p>\n

After 13 years, I will no longer be a homeowner.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Honestly, I didn\u2019t expect this to happen this quickly.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think any of us between myself, Jen and our realtor really did.\u00a0 I expected, and dreaded the notion that my house would sit on the market for an uncomfortably long time, and that we\u2019d have to slash the price once or twice to entice buyers into biting, because that\u2019s often been the case with other homes in my subdivision, which has the dubious misfortune of being located in a part of the Metro Atlanta area where the recession hit the hardest and the housing market recovered the absolute least.\u00a0 I thought I\u2019d get to the point where the melancholy sadness of leaving my house would eventually fade away, and I\u2019d eventually grow exasperated and resentful of paying for, maintaining, and concerning over a property where nobody lived in, a far location away from the rest of life, and that when the day came when it finally sold, it would be like a monumental weight off of my shoulders.<\/span><\/p>\n

That was hardly the case, as fast as we listed the home, it drew interest immediately, and the snowball began rolling down the hill faster than the emotions of separation anxiety could really take hold.\u00a0 The house was priced tremendously aggressively with the intent of selling as fast as possible, as it\u2019s not really any secret that the longer a property remains on the market, the further its appeal drops with each passing day with eventually its price in an attempt to drum it back up.\u00a0 And it worked immediately, drawing enough serious offers to where a contract was accepted in days, leading to a fairly immediate closing process which saw inspections and walk-throughs come and go in what felt like the blink of an eye.<\/span><\/p>\n

Frankly, it has all worked out for the best, because ultimately, all parties involved are getting what they really want out of this whole process.\u00a0 Jen and I are not going to be paying numerous months on a vacant house while we\u2019re both adapting to separate lives in apartments.\u00a0 And our realtor is not going to have to worry about a property in an unappealing part of the city, sitting with no interest, wondering what tactics and\/or price cuts would be necessary in order to move it off the agenda.\u00a0 Everyone is going to be making a little bit of coin in a scenario where breaking even was ultimately the goal, and in a very short amount of time, we all get to move forward with our lives, with the house no longer being part of the equation.<\/span><\/p>\n

All that\u2019s really left is the emotion and melancholy stuff and the official goodbye to the house that housed me for the last 13 years.\u00a0 In this regard, things worked out for the best as well, since it happened all so quickly, that there simply wasn\u2019t any time for any resentment, relief or exasperation to take effect.\u00a0 Jen and I paid very little more than just every single month we resided in the home, and there doesn\u2019t appear to have been a tremendous amount of sunk cost in paying bills for an empty home.\u00a0 There was no time for the empty house to begin feeling like a burden, and now that we\u2019re saying goodbye so quickly, it\u2019s actually legitimately sad and emotional that the ride is coming to an end.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s really it.\u00a0 After months of hard work, adaptation and acceptance of change, after weeks of emo-ey and sad posts about eventually saying goodbye to my house, and after a few more weeks of nervous excitement of the home selling process, we\u2019ve reached the end of the line.\u00a0 I\u2019ve shed enough tears, given more than enough thoughts and written plenty of words about the matter, but change is change, and when it comes to life there\u2019s only one direction to move, which is forward, whether it was wanted or not.<\/span><\/p>\n

Goodbye, house.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been through a lot of good times, and we\u2019ve been through some bad times.\u00a0 But the good ones far outweighed the bad ones, fortunately.\u00a0 Things didn\u2019t work out as well as we\u2019d hoped as far as the surrounding area was concerned, but we always made things work in general.\u00a0 Everybody complained and made fun of our distance from the rest of Atlanta, but I think it made Jen and I stronger people, more resilient to commuting, and less apt to take for granted shorter distances.\u00a0 We\u2019ve learned tons about homeownership, and through our shared experiences, it makes us wiser and stronger for our next attempts at future American dreams of owning property.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although I will not be the legal owner of the property and will not be living in you any further, you\u2019ll always be known as home<\/em> to me.\u00a0 I hope you give future residents much of the same wealth of experience and the invaluable pleasure of a roof over their heads as you have for Jen and I over the last 13 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

And as much as I look forward to not making the sometimes long drive down to you anymore on a permanent basis, I will, undoubtedly, miss you.<\/span><\/p>\n