Chance or Fate?
Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.
Ovid (43BC-17AD)
Well thanks to my sister, I have a new TV addiction that thankfully is disappointing me. 24 seemed like a good idea, it seemed like something that I would like, I actually really liked the first 4 or 5 hours of this season. Now, the show is really ridiculous and I am sad to say that I still am watching it. Martial Law in Los Angeles to protect 200000 people? Come on...the government tries to declare martial law in LA and 200000 bloods and crips alone would be dead before nightfall. The OJ riots would seem like a day at Disneyland compared to how that city would erupt if any government tried what is being done on 24. Then, as if to add salt to my wound, martial law is declared and they never talk about it again! I know I need to suspend my disbelief but I just can't take it anymore with this show. It's on at 9pm on Monday and I really can't wait to see what happens to President Palmer's brother this week. If you don't know what that means, save yourself 24 hours of TV viewing and don't try to figure it out.
Enough of that.
Do you believe in fate? That as we move around in this world sometimes things just happen for a reason? As my good man Ovid notes above, Chance or Fate is always powerful. If we choose to let it have the power. Sometimes I believe in it, usually when it's good fate I believe in it, bad fate I have no time for right now. Good fate or at least a weird coincidence happened today. In the mail was a letter from a realtor indicating that someone is interested in purchasing our house. If I hadn't just written a recent blog about moving then today's letter may not of been that strange. As we consider moving, selling our house is a big concern. We tried to sell it last year for a few weeks and we pulled it off the market before we got any serious offers. If we had the house sold before we went looking for a new one it would really make looking for a new house a lot easier. At least I think it would make looking for a new house a lot easier. On some levels it is almost like a chicken and an egg kind of situation.
If we sell our home first, then we will feel pressure to find something new because by a certain date we will, in essence, be homeless. If we find something we want to buy first, then we may end up with two mortgage payments for a while. Neither scenario is likely or desirable but both scenarios are possible.
Of course we could just stay put. Do nothing. Hunker down for the long haul. Stay the course. Ride out the storm. Or any other cliche that you can think of that pertains to not moving. Staying in place certainly alleviates the stress of moving. It doesn't alleviate the stress involved in staying put however. That is the catch-22 that I and my family find ourselves in. I know that many people find themselves in this situation when they have a home to sell, I am just curious how other people resolve it.
I have found that fate is something to be embraced, or you will become consumed by it. This is my choice, as is my attitude towards change in life. In the past, i would become angry, frustrated because things weren't going the way I thought they needed to go. But when I embraced the change, life went along a bit better, even through the hard times.
As for your house, many relators send out letters like the one you received in order to generate new listings. Or, this realtor could have some type of offer in mind for your home. Either way, I'd talk to the realtor and see what is going on. Just make the sale of your home contingent upon your finding another home, or you could consider renting your home from the new owners for a period of time while you find a new place to live. Both solutions are common and acceptable terms to a purchase & sales agreement. This way, you don't have two mortgages to pay.
Last time we sold a house, we had moved before it sold. We were fortunate in that we could afford the mortgage and the cost of renting a three bedroom home in Gulfport, which was dirt-cheap compared to the cost of renting the same home back in NH.