I am a believer in perfect Universal timing.  Over the years, I’ve found that trying to push or force something doesn’t always produce the best results. Learning to trust this timing can be the hard part, but recent events have only reinforced its beauty for me.

As you probably noticed, I haven’t posted in a couple of months. With all the events that were happening as I’ll explain below, I just didn’t have the mental, emotional, or physical bandwidth to settle down and write. But I’m back now, with excitement and a renewed spirit.

During the past nine months, my daughter’s family and I had a mission…sell three houses, buy another, and move to North Carolina from Michigan. On the surface, it didn’t sound too difficult, except for the fact that my son-in-law accepted a new job in North Carolina and had to move there immediately, living in a travel trailer. That left my daughter and I to wrap up the Michigan real estate.

The biggest project was to finish a cottage rebuild that we were two-thirds of the way through. It was physical, strenuous and deadline driven. We needed to get it completed, marketed, and sold so the proceeds could be used to buy a house in North Carolina.  We jumped hurdles, figured a lot of shit out, gained new skills and learned when to call in more experienced help.

Once done, serendipity and universal timing bloomed. No need to market and show the property. A neighbor had been watching our progress, liked our work and offered to buy it. What a relief! Approximate closing timeline, 30 days.

House #2, my daughter’s, was thankfully a refresh, not a rebuild. It required painting, purging and minor repairs. After a couple of weeks, it was ready to sell. To save money, we were not using real estate agents as we felt we had enough experience to go it alone. Self-marketing the property produced several offers within a matter of days. Offer accepted, closing within 30 days. Yes! Down payment money for the new house was on the horizon.

In the meantime, my son-in-law was shopping for a new home in North Carolina and of course, it appeared…right when we needed it to. Previously, we had knocked this one off our list of potentials but couldn’t even remember why.  But there it was in front of us again, demanding our attention and meeting all our highest purchasing priorities. Offer tendered and accepted. Closing? 30-45 days.

Mine was the last house to be sold and required the least work to be market ready. We were certain that it would sell quickly, as the local market is always short on inventory, and anything within the realm of a reasonable purchase price is under contract swiftly. Again, self-marketing and a couple of days later, in came a full cash offer. Serendipity again, offer accepted and closing in ten business days.

As I look back on all the circumstances, I marvel at the timing and sequence of events. Would it have been possible to accomplish all of this without the help of others? Certainly not. There are those who gave of their time and efforts to help us, like Adam, Lis, Jess, Eric, Nick, Marc, Inger and more, and we are thankful. Could we have foreseen or planned for the hundred little things that happened during the process? I don’t see how.

When I recall the events, it’s some of the details that amaze me. We closed on four properties within twelve days. That seems damn incredible itself. But there were stress producing hurdles all along the way, for example, the buyer of the cottage couldn’t get a purchase agreement to us right away as he had to have emergency surgery and a week’s hospital stay. Documents were delayed because emails sat unread in a bank employees’ Inbox for more than a week, but eventually everything was taken care of.

Closing date information wasn’t relayed in a timely manner and my daughter’s family had to be out of their home earlier than expected. It took the efforts of many people to load the items from two homes into that moving truck in just a few hours. But it all got done.

The closing for our new house in North Carolina was moved up ten days, which worked out great for us. It meant that the moving truck could be unloaded directly into the new house instead of into a storage unit where everything would have had to be moved again. The day of closing though, was an emotional rollercoaster, fraught with dozens of phone calls and bank wire transfer issues, and it only became certain that the closing could even take place less than an hour before the appointed time. That was a high blood pressure day! But it all worked out for the best.

A compassionate man who came to tour my home was a night nurse in a local hospital mental health unit. We talked for quite a while and somehow the fact came up that some of the patients were always needing clothing and shoes. I had a box containing a couple pairs of new tennis shoes and some clothing that I just didn’t feel right about donating to Goodwill. I’m sure now that they were meant to go with him. I felt great and grateful for that.

The gal who bought my house thrives on high vibes. She exclaimed repeatedly that “I wasn’t even going to buy a house” but that somehow, she knew she wanted a home like mine… even before she drove around the corner and saw the ‘for sale’ sign. She had just arrived in town the day before from Arizona and was staying with one of her relatives close by. It turns out that her relative was my next store neighbor for more than 25 years at my previous home.She toured my home one evening and the next afternoon I said to my daughter “I sure hope the gal who came last night wants to buy my house, I really liked her.” And right at that moment she called to say that she would like to make me an offer for my house.

All along the way there were remarkable events happening with remarkable timing, and through all of that, we saved over $28,000 in realtor fees.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve learned that I’m not required to plan everything, or figure everything out or know how everything works or how everything will turn out. That  can be was so exhausting! Now I know that if I just ‘get the ball rolling’ and I can trust Soul and serendipity work it all out for my benefit.  Till next time, peace out ;)