Well, after dabbling with renting out our first little home in Tennessee for 364 days, we’re officially under contract to sell it! Woohoo!
We got an email out of the blue from our property manager three weeks ago today saying that our tenants were expecting orders to move mid-March. It took Jamie and I approximately two minutes to weigh the pros and cons and decide that the time is right to sell. We love that sweet starter home so much, but we’ve been feeling uncomfortable lately with the uncertainty of Fort Campbell’s future. Though holding on to the house as an investment property has been really appealing, we are ready to lighten our financial load and let it go.
our first family photo in front of the house the day Jamie left for his first deployment
I talked with a random realtor named Christian with Prudential Realty the very next morning, and I was pretty darn clear that I was looking for a super motivated realtor who was going to get the ball rolling now, as in as soon as we get off the phone. We weren’t willing to wait to get the house listed after our tenants moved out because we wanted to minimize the amount of time that the house sat empty. Ain’t nobody got time to pay months of multiple mortgages. Nope!
I hooked up our property manager and our realtor, and our realtor then linked up with the tenants. I don’t know who that sweet couple is that currently lives in our home, but I am wishing a large amount of goodness on them. They absolutely did not have to clean the house for pictures or leave for two showings, but they totally did which helped us sell our house before they even moved out! Oh so thankful. Some form of a thank you gift will make its way to them in their new home soon.
So here was our timeline if you’re curious:
February 23rd – Received news that the tenants were moving out soon due to an upcoming PCS
February 24th – Spoke with realtor for an hour and signed all paperwork electronically
February 26 – Realtor took pictures and gathered info for listing
March 2nd – Listing went live
March 4th – Massive snowstorm/ice storm blew into Clarksville, halting buyer interest
March 7th – First call, first showing
March 13th – Received first offer and promptly countered
March 14th – Buyers accept our counter offer and signed contract paperwork / Drank celebratory wine
The new buyers will close on the house late April, so we’ll have roughly six weeks of an empty house/double mortgages. We can totally handle that because we’d planned for the house to not sell so quick, and we’re just stoked that selling this home has been so easy. It just blows my mind that we can sell a house through phone calls, text messages, and digital signatures. Too awesome.
Commence the praying hard that the contract doesn’t fall through and the inspection goes well. This owning a rental property thing wasn’t a bad gig at all, but we’re pumped to let go of some major home debt and focus our energy on our Kansas home. Whoop!
A few flashback posts about buying our first home:
