The One

This is a springtime photo of  the home we have lived in for 16 years and are moving from next week.


We all know about "The One".  Like when you meet the perfect life partner, you tell your friends that you have found "The One."  It also applies to wedding dresses.  You can try on different styles for hours, but when you have tried "The One", no other dress will do.

I think the same applies to the place where you live.  Whether it is your first apartment or your dream home, you get a certain feeling when you walk in the front door, and you know it is "The One."

We started talking about down-sizing and moving from the suburbs to a downtown townhouse about 18 months ago.  Since then I have looked at about 15 townhouses in search of either the perfect place or the place that could be remodeled into our perfect place.

We had certain criteria that were non-negotiable.  For instance, it had to have a first floor master bedroom, dirt (instead of a condo with a balcony), room for our out-of-town family members to come and spend a few nights, a two car garage, and be in a good downtown neighborhood.  We felt everything else that didn't fit this description could be added through remodeling.

Last December on a sunny but cold afternoon, we found "The One."  The trouble was we had a busy year ahead of us with our daughter's wedding in April, four months of traveling and some big business projects to tackle.  We would not have time to put our house on the market until the fall, and we weren't about to buy a property before our current house had sold. 

So, we had to just cross our fingers and hope that no one would buy our number one choice.  Lucky for us, the owner had priced the unit much higher than it was worth.  Meanwhile, we continued to look at townhouses and found two that we thought could be our second and third choices.  We felt that maybe one of the three would still be on the market by the time our house sold.

When October arrived, we were ready to put our house on the market.  We had it professionally appraised so we could price it properly, we had it staged so that its beauty could be enhanced, and we hired a top-selling realtor.  Our house sold in just three weeks time.

Meanwhile our second and third choices had sold during the year, but "The One" was still available.  After an afternoon of negotiating with the by now motivated seller, we settled on a price that satisfied us all, and we signed a contract to buy.  We will close next week. 

Keep coming back to see where we are moving and to follow the process.