The motivation for me to move somewhere else is in large part about being closer to nature, and therefore the physical location of a home is important to me. Once I realized that even in much less expensive areas that the land costs are beyond my budget, I started to envision a different way to have the visual benefit of lots of land.
I imagined finding the last house on the block with an agricultural field next to it. That way I can have the feeling of lots of land and space without having to buy it all!
I went cruising online, looking at properties for sale in that area (for research purposes only since we aren’t ready to buy something), and one particular home resonated with me. Of course, I didn’t know anything about the location, who the neighbors are, what the condition of the house is – in short, I didn’t know any of the important information that would be critical in making a decision when buying a home.
But nonetheless, it was nice to see that what I was imagining was possible, so I pulled up this picture on my screen to show my husband, saying, “This is it. This is the vision.”
I didn’t mean we should buy this; I just wanted him to share the visual.
It was the last house on the block; on one side it was bordered by a grove of palm trees; the front of the house looked onto an agricultural field. To the left of the home that shares a common wall were more agricultural fields, and opposite the house there was a beautiful view of the mountains.
The listing had almost no pictures of the inside of the home, leading me to think suspiciously about the condition of the home. But no matter, because I wasn’t ready to look at it anyway. I didn’t even make a call to the agent listed to ask the briefest of questions. Even when I later visited the area to look at houses with a different agent, I didn’t call about this house.
Literally less than two minutes into our drive with the agent we met, I recognized the above house as we drove by. I asked him about it; after checking it out, he told us it was an exclusive listing with a different agent so he couldn’t show it to us.
We finished looking at homes and then drove to visit the first family we had scheduled to drop in at.
And where do you suppose they live?
Right behind this house.
It was starting to feel like I was being pulled to this house, despite my resistance to do anything more than look at a picture on the computer screen.
I considered contacting the agent, but procrastinated about it. Because we’re not ready to buy a house. And I don’t want to waste people’s time. But most of all, because I was afraid it would be the right house for us and I couldn’t see how we could buy it.
I procrastinated for two weeks, until a day before visiting the area again I finally asked the agent to see it.
This time our eighteen year old daughter was with us, and she didn’t think much of the house. I completely understand her; many people have a hard time seeing beyond clutter/mess and someone else’s style. But I’m really good at seeing the potential beyond the distractions.
What I saw was a convenient location, good neighbors (we introduced ourselves to the family immediately next door after looking at the house), and a suitably sized house and yard. And of course very important to me – the expanse of land close by.
Oh – at a price we could comfortably afford.
Darn. Darn. Darn.
This strongly matched what I wanted but didn’t match my timeline. And that wasn’t completely exciting – it was honestly kind of stressful.
So now there was a dilemma. Should we wait a few months until our home sold and make an offer if this was still on the market? But it wasn’t likely to still be on the market. From briefly viewing other homes, we realized the combination of features we were looking for wasn’t a common scenario.
What to do? I was so conflicted. This seemed so right for us. But, hello, money?!?
We brainstormed, we talked, we made some calls about alternative financing.
After all of this we told the agent we were interested and needed to have an inspection done. It took two weeks for the inspection to be completed, and we finally put in our purchase offer.
At this point I was sure this would be the home we would buy and the only question is what the final price would be.
So I thought. This brings to mind the saying, ‘Man plans and G-d laughs.’
Two days later, the agent got back to us. We were ready for a counteroffer, but we weren’t ready for what we were told.
The seller changed his mind about selling and was taking his home off the market.
I was completely thrown off. I was deeply disappointed. I couldn’t believe it.
I mean, this house was my vision. It seemed so perfect for us, everything had seemed to flow so smoothly toward that point. I hadn’t even looked for it – it had found me. It really felt like a huge magnet had pulled us to this house because this is the house we were meant to have.
And then, it wasn’t.
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The first act of courage is to have a vision that is bigger that what you currently have.
The next act of courage is to hold on to that vision even when it seems to be crumbling in front of you.
The most natural thing in the world is when you reach out for something and your hand gets sharply slapped down, is to stop reaching. Instead, you make your vision smaller and safer, and you tell yourself all the reasons you didn’t really want what you were reaching for anyway.
This has been my next growth opportunity. To continue to move toward my overall vision, and to release my attachment to the specifics of how the vision comes about. I can’t say how major this is and how challenging this is. I trust that somehow my vision is going to come together, but how, when, where, what – I don’t know any of that.
On an almost daily basis I have been asking G-d to give me clarity about the next right step, and whether it was what I wanted or not, the seller’s response gave me the clarity I asked for.
The answer is either: 1) not this house right now, or 2) there is a better home for us.
This is the thought I’m going with – either this home will come back to us at a more opportune time, or there is a more suitable home for us.
This emotional dance is like walking a tightrope – to believe that you’re going to have something you want in your life but not feel upset when you don’t get it. To trust something will happen and let go of your specific idea of what that will look like (in this case releasing attachment to this specific house). To be connected but not overly invested.
A few years ago I couldn’t even understand this concept in an abstract way. I would ponder this idea, wondering how in the world is that possible?
Either you want something, take actions toward it and you care about the outcome, or you don’t care about the outcome and don’t move toward it. How can you move toward something and release the end result emotionally?
It’s interesting, learning to surf the waves of life.
Avivah
I must say I was not expecting the story to end like it did. As I was reading all the steps you took, we felt all the Hashgocha Pratis, step by step leading you to this house. I am extremely sorry this didn’t work out for you and your family. The 2nd part of your learning experience, I have read it twice, but I still need to reread and absorb. thank you for sharing. You and your family should be blessed with a Shana Tova U’metuka .
Thank you for sharing our experience, Rachelli!
What I’ll say is that the story hasn’t ended. It just hasn’t yet been fully revealed, and I’m continuing to envision finding the right place at the right time.
Shana tova to you!
This, so much!
When we first got ready and started looking, we got an offer on our house the first weekend after putting it on the market. A day later we found the perfect house – well, perfect location and garden, I should say. The house itself needed a lot of work, but it had good bones. Furthermore, this house had been on the market for nearly a year with no offers on it…. Clearly it had been waiting for us, I thought
Until someone made a counteroffer we couldn’t match. Aaargh.
A variation of this happened three more times during the year of transition. The next attempt fell through because our buyer changed their mind about moving. Then once we found a second buyer, the vendors on the third property we liked had the financing on their forward move fall through. The fourth one, the vendors changed their mind about moving.
And at this point I really felt like somebody was trying to hammer a hint in that I was wilfully ignoring. Seriously, this move was about me, driven by my desires and perceived needs. Were they really just wants? Was I just being selfish and all this was intended to teach me a lesson?
I need to add at this point that I am not normally prone to putting myself down. But this was a really hard year. My mum was dying of cancer, my daughter was battling her mental health issues, I was trying to adjust to living with fibro.
So it was all just getting to be too much. At this point, I was ready to throw in the towel, and would have done if I hadn’t liked our second buyer so much, and she really, really wanted our house. And she was the perfect fit for the neighbourhood too, and I liked my neighbours, and this was important to me.
So Mike and I sat down and went over our reasons for moving again. And one thing he helped me realise is that with each subsequent property, I had allowed my vision to shrink, until the last one was barely recognisable as fitting in with where I wanted – needed – to be. I’d not have been happy in that house. Now I was thinking more clearly, I was relieved it fell through.
And at this point I finally did what really I should have done first. I took out pen and paper and wrote down everything we felt and needed we wanted to get from this move. My mum taught me to do this – prepare for change and transition by setting out my intentions clearly, in writing, and periodically review them as events unfold – when I was a little girl, and I’ve always done it since. Except this time, with so much going on, I tried winging it, and it just ran away from me.
This was at 9pm gmt on the 1st February 2015, three days before my birthday. And here’s where it all gets spooky.
Early the next morning, I was woken up by a phonecall from my dad. My mum passed away, pretty much around the same time I heard her voice in my inner ear, reminding me what I ought to do to unsnarl the situation we found ourselves in.
Of course, the house hunting got forgotten for a few days at this point. But by the time I returned from the funeral, Mike had spotted a new listing that actually went live on my birthday – and it seemed to not only tick every single must have on our list, but also all but two of the “would be nice to haves”, including some I didn’t even write down, but Mike knew I really liked, just thought they were completely out of our reach so didn’t bother putting them down at all.
So we went to view the house – which was even better in the flesh, as it were, than it was online – and in talking to the agent at the vendor, we found out that the vendors had planned on this to be their forever home…. Until the husband got an unexpected choice between redundancy or relocation. On the 1st February. And the family decided that same evening that they would take relocation. Probably around the time as we were sitting down trying to conjure up our new home.
And from that moment on, everything was smooth as butter, and we moved in on the 22nd May 2015.
So just because you can’t see where the winding path leads, or are certain at times that it might be leading you away from your goal…. Does not mean you are not getting closer to where you need to be with every step you take, even when you’re feeling like you’re walking backwards.
Our move could not have been smooth because our decision to make it had to be made before our new home was ready for us. And it had to be made when it did because life events that followed would have made it impossible to decide to take that step unless the mental step had already been made.
I must say that, human nature being what it is, I do still get a little pang when we (infrequently) drive past that first property I fell in love with…. But there is no doubt now that the place we ended up in was always a much better fit for us. Seeing that first garden though did give me some very good ideas on how to handle the garden I got, so there was a reason for that too.
All shall be well in the end. If all is not well – it’s not yet the end.
Allegra, I love, love, love so much of what you shared. So.much. So encouraging and inspiring to hear about your process and the end result.
This highlights for me the power of having clarity of what you really want, and recognizing that when things aren’t working out, there’s a divine energy in place to help you have your best life and keep you from things that aren’t a fit for you.
The part that is a delicate dance was something I’ve tried to understand for a long time.
I learned from someone that when we have determined to the best of our ability that something we want is Hashems will- it will allow is to serve Him better, then even when it seems impossible, we need to apply “white fire will” make our will soo strong. But at the same time we have to be prepared to take a “no” if we get one after investing ourselves mindfully and emotionally soo strongly – I guess in the case that our vision of the details is not the way Hashem will provide, or that our vision is just wrong. That is so difficult for me to understand and know – how do we know when we should take it as a global no to our desire, or to have patience that we will be answered with different specifics.
Leora, I don’t believe in a ‘no’; I believe in ‘not now’ or ‘something better’. It’s a more helpful way for me to view what looks like my will being thwarted.
Something else that I was thinking is a saying I’ve heard and like: Man’s rejection is G-d’s protection. When something isn’t working out, it’s G-d’s way of protecting me. Again, the same idea in a slightly different way.
I’ve often questioned when I hit what seems to be a roadblock, does this mean I’m meant to stop, go in a different direction or keep trying harder? At this stage in my life, trying harder isn’t an option that I consider much. It doesn’t feel aligned with flowing with G-d’s will for me to try to make things happen.
It’s really not a simple thing to grapple with!
Avivah, I so understand this situation. Disappointment is something that I struggle with in many areas of my life. It is usually my expectations that don’t match reality and I know you have spoken on that topic many times. However, my real estate disappointments have always (every single time) ended in the best possible conclusion for me and our family! I will be waiting to see how GREAT your conclusion is. Fondly, Jan
I can’t wait to share how it all works out with you all, Jan! In G-d’s perfect timing.
That is a beautiful area, what city is that?