Excess of Housing

It's been way too long since I posted anything personal on here. For the moment, I'm not going to try to catch-up a lot.

Primarily, friends have been asking about where we are in buying a house. In September, we found a bank-owned home about a block from our current house, in the same neighborhood. It's a 2-story, 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath (well, the master bath is more like a 3/4 bath).

We put an offer in on the house. It was lower than the list price. There was a roof leak that had created a mold problem in the master closet. We also wrote into the contract that the leak and mold needed to be fixed. The bank was selling the house "as-is", so refused to accept the contract with the requirement to fix the leak and mold, but did still agree to do the repair and use a reputable company we approved.

It was into October before the contract was ratified. We had also discovered that the heating and air-conditioning system was not working. It took some pressure from our loan company, but eventually the bank agreed to repair that problem as well.

With the contract ratified and the closing date set for November 21, we gave 30 days notice to the rental agency for our current house that we would be moving out by the end of November. This past Friday, the rental agency responded to our notice to say that they would still hold us responsible for the remainder of our lease agreement (through June), unless we find someone to take over the lease. We knew this would be a possibility, so considered it when deciding to make an offer on the house. With both of us working, handling both the rent and the mortgage for the next few months should be doable, though definitely not our first choice. Since we just got the notice from the rental agency on Friday evening. We will still be calling them back to see what sort of options or compromises might be available with the rental house.

All this to say, we seem to be blessed with an excess of housing through June. To mitigate the costs and to share the blessing, we are interested in finding someone to either take over the lease on our current 2-story, 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath townhouse OR individuals interested in renting rooms in our new townhouse (perhaps students for the Spring semester).

At this point, we are going to delay our move for a bit--not rush to be out of the rental by November and (hopefully) use the time to do a bit of work on the new house before moving in. Once we get a better idea which (if either) house we might find someone to rent, then we'll get more serious about moving again. Or we may move over Christmas/New Year's break.

Prayers are appreciated as we continue to sort out timing for our move and what should be done with the excess of housing. If you are interested or know someone who might be interested in renting a room our a house through June or so, please contact us and we'll be happy to give you more information!