We Moved!

We are still near to Pensacola but just closed on a house in Spanish Fort, AL!

Wait, Spanish Fort? What About Pensacola?

When we made the decision to move last Fall we felt it was best to be in a town right outside of Pensacola… specifically Pace or Milton. Moving to the Pensacola area would give us many more flight options for getting to the Caribbean. Plus, it would save us a lot of money on tickets too and we would be within an hour to Sean’s family! It seemed like the Lord was opening doors to move us there so we just kept taking the next step.

And then the Lord shut those doors in a very obvious way.

We listed our house, had multiple showings within 24 hours and received an unbelievable offer! Once we cleared the inspection we decided to find a realtor in Pensacola and make a trip to see some homes… and possibly make an offer. We talked to our lender and were given a verbal pre-approval for an amount that would just get us into a home that would work for our family. So we set up a list of homes to look at and planned to spend the weekend shopping with our realtor.

Right before we left we received the pre-approval letter from our lender but the numbers had dropped considerably. The amount was too low for us to actually move to Pace or Milton. Living within Pensacola didn’t seem like it would work for our family either. So we had to cancel our plans for the weekend. Over the next week we decided to look at Daphne in Alabama.

Daphne is about a 40 minute drive from the Pensacola airport. It was definitely farther than we wanted to be BUT it is in the same area as Sean’s family, has excellent schools and most importantly, homes in our new lower budget. Plus we realized that we would be traveling to the Daphne area several times a month to see family but Sean would only be driving to the airport once every 4 – 6 weeks. The more we thought, prayed and talked about it, the more it seemed like Daphne was a much better option. So maybe God was opening a door in Daphne???

We found another realtor in the Daphne area, made a list of homes we wanted to see and planned a trip down that weekend. Once again, right before we left, we received a call from our lender. This time we were told our budget had gone back up to the original amount he verbally gave us the previous week… and this time we were actually given the pre-approval letter with the higher budget.

We weren’t sure at this point what God was up to but we just took the next step, which was to drive to Daphne and tour homes.

We had 6 homes on our list, one of those homes wasn’t in Daphne… it was in Spanish Fort. We had never considered Spanish Fort because although it is right next to Daphne, it is hard to find a house in our budget.

Extremely hard.

They have some of the best schools in the state and it’s also a 40 minute drive to Pensacola. But this house had been on the market for 30 days, which is VERY LONG for Spanish Fort. They had recently dropped the price putting it within our budget so our realtor really wanted us to see it.

The homes in Daphne didn’t work out… two accepted offers the night before we wanted to see them, another had multiple offers we couldn’t compete with (but it wasn’t a good fit anyway), another needed a lot of work and another was a new build that wasn’t finished.

We were really left with the Spanish Fort house.

And we LOVED it. We were so excited about it! They had no idea why the house hadn’t sold already because it was such a great deal! Maybe God was just holding it for us!

We made an offer, it was accepted, and we closed on Friday June 12th! Buying the house was like a rollercoaster with our lender. There were many times when we worried the entire thing might fall through because of issues with them. So that’s why we were so quiet about the change of plans. We wanted to BE SURE we were really going to buy this house in Spanish Fort before we told everyone about the change of plans. God had already shut the doors for the Pensacola area, we wanted to know He was really opening them for Spanish Fort.

But now that we have signed the papers I hope it’s safe to say that we have officially moved from Montgomery to Spanish Fort! We are very excited about our new home, our girls love it, there are lots of kids in the neighborhood, the elementary school is basically around the corner, Sean’s parents live 5 minutes away and Sean easily gets on I-10 for his 40 minute drive to the airport in Pensacola! We honestly couldn’t have imagined a better set up!

The next step is to move in and get settled. We miss Montgomery so much but we are excited to see what God has for us here in Spanish Fort!