Leased at Last

After 4 months on the market with not so much as a bite, even after lowering the price twice, we decided to list our house for lease. We were able to overlap this with the sale market - just in case. Leasing was not really something we wanted to do - especially being 3 hours away and this was my first home - what if someone totally trashed it??? But, it was coming into August, we were starting to get into panic mode because no one buys a house after August because school has already started, etc. We still owe too much to list our house at a price that would move in this market. So, we bit the bullet and I started looking for a leasing agent since our sale agent doesn't do leasing. I got into contact with an agent, and already in about 2 days she was SO much more informative than our sale agent. Not 10 minutes after I got off the phone with her for the first time, she had sent me a list of what I needed to do to the house in order to lease (re-keying and installation of locks, etc), a list of houses for lease in my neighborhood, how much they were asking for rent, and how long they were on the market before being leased. I do believe we'll be calling her when it is time to list for sale again!!

She had our house live on the lease market on Friday, emailed and called us about 5 times before Tuesday, and on Wednesday called and said we had a good application. Yes, in 5 days we had our house leased. We had 4 applications by Monday (3 days after go-live), but they were a little quirky. Our agent was VERY realistic and gave us her honest opinions about the people who were applying to lease our house. When these tenants came along, she did extensive checking/research, and called me to say she thought they were good. She explained their situation, had talked to the agent that was trying to help them sell their house, even sent us the listing of their home so we could see the condition they kept their house in. It is a family, which is ideal, so I don't have to worry about college kids ruining my house. And they have owned a home that was very well kept, and the husband did most of the rennovations/upkeep on their house himself, so I know they'll take good care of our house.

They move in September 1! So last weekend and this weekend are mad packing! We'll be moving our stuff into storage here in Waxahachie until we find a bigger place. The lease is up here in the apartment at the end of September (yes, that's 6 months I've been here, people), so we've started looking around. We'll see what comes up!

As for Marc, his job search is still flat. No calls, no interviews, nothing. He is going to stay with a friend until the end of October (mainly so he can collect his next quarterly bonus ;) ), and regardless of what is going on, he is moving up here November 1. His mood is really down right now and I'm starting to worry. So my only solution is to get him up here as soon as possible. And now that the house is leased, we can live on my salary if we need to. Marc has talked with his regional director about taking a transfer with HEB (something he has adamantly refused to do until now), and we should know by next week if he can get Marc into the store here in Waxahachie. He has to do some creative moving in order to get a second manager into this small store, but hopefully it will work out. If this happens, Marc will stop working in Austin on October 15 and start at the store here November 1, so he has a little break to move, settle, and relax. This way he'll have a 5 minute drive to work and not have to worry about the house/yard, so he can focus more on looking for a new job.

So, a busy next few weeks! And I'm super stoked for FOOTBALL! We kept our season tickets for UT, so I'll still be traveling to Austin for games. Unfortunately, we were unable to get tickets to the Tech vs UT game in Lubbock this year through the Longhorn Foundation, so I don't think we'll get to go. Oh well. Wreck 'em, and Hook 'em!