We won! We won! We won! I am so excited because I never win anything! We have been on the waiting list to purchase a home in University Hills. We have been waiting and waiting and no houses have been offered us yet. A little over a month ago, though, David received an email that we were eligible to participate in a lottery drawing for 22 new homes being constructed in University Hills. We were asked to rank the 22 homes in order of preference. The housing office would then draw a name and offer that person the house at the top of their list. The next name chosen would be offered the highest ranked house available.
We have been praying that we would be offered one of the new houses. Of the floor plans, we liked the single story with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. In the 22 homes, there were only two with this floor plan. This week, we were offered our top choice, which we accepted almost immediately!
The house is scheduled to be completed in October and escrow will close October 15. Yay! Yes, this means we WILL be moving TWICE! We will be renting a two-bedroom apartment (in University Hills) for three months. That means we are going from a 2500 square foot house to a 1200 square foot apartment. There actually is a loft as well, which will be the girls' bedroom. I am actually really excited about this. Space is such an American phenomenon! In most places in the world, families live in less space than we will have in the apartment. I am hoping that being in such close proximity with one another will bring about the refinement that we all need!
So, you may be wondering why we want to live in University Hills? Is it like Beverly Hills? No, it actually is just affordable housing (if you can consider any housing in Orange County affordable). The land is owned by UC Irvine, so you buy the house and lease the land, which helps control the price. Oddly enough, because of the way that appreciation of property values is calculated, the new homes are less expensive than the older homes. Another great aspect of the new homes is that we will have some say in some of the design. We're not really sure exactly what we will have a say about, but we are imagining things like the floors and counters, that sort of thing.
We are still trying to sell our house in New Orleans (know of anyone looking for a beautiful four bedroom, three bathroom home?). We have had two offers so far. One was less than we paid for the house and quite a bit less than our asking price. The other fell through because of family disputes. Lately, though, there has been quite a bit of interest. We had a showing on Thursday. We will have two showings tomorrow also. I actually talked to the first potential buyer because he was snooping around the property. The family seems really interested and have told our real estate agent that he will write an offer tomorrow if he and his wife like the house. Our prayer has been that we will have a contract before we leave which is in 10 days, July 10! PLEASE PRAY WITH US THAT GOD WILL PROVIDE THE RIGHT BUYER FOR THIS HOME!
Now, I know I started off this post saying "We won!" Of course, that's not entirely accurate. We give all the credit to God, who provides for all of our needs, physical and spiritual. He has provided us with an affordable home through this lottery! We also trust that He will provide a buyer for this home as well!
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