We just bought a house at an auction!
#1- No we’re not pregnant (and we’re not going to be)… every time I hear someone has “big news” I assume that’s what it’s going to be! #2- We just bought a house at an auction!
Here’s the story:
Our goal was to move to MN. My family is there and it’s closer to Matt’s family. There’s a lot of things we love about Minnesota. But… people are leaving MN for ND daily. There are jobs here, there are no jobs there. We have good friends here. We have an awesome church here. It seemed that the harder we tried to make it work to move to MN, the more God revealed to us that he has us here for a reason. We realized that maybe moving to MN was more our will than God’s, and maybe it just wasn’t the right timing. So then we realized that if we are going to stay in ND longer, that we would REALLY like a bigger house and more land.
Last month I decided to just drive down the street that is my “dream street” in Dickinson. The houses are really nice, the yards are huge, and it’s in our current neighborhood (which we love). There was a house listed for upcoming auction. I called the owners and walked through it that night. I really loved it but when I talked to Matt about it we decided it was a long shot and probably just wouldn’t work out. Then I mentioned it to my dad who encouraged us to think about it harder. The rest of the month we worked on tying up loose ends around our house.
Come auction day we decided we would go, and we would bid, but we wouldn’t go crazy. We showed up at the auction and there were about 6 other couples that we thought would be bidding. Matt refused to even look around the house because he was certain we would be outbid. The bidding started and only ONE person bid against us! Our real estate agent had helped us decide what our max bid would be and when the bidding ended we were still only at 85% of what we planned on bidding!! When we heard the words, “SOLD” we were in shock!!!
We headed home and worked like CRAZY to get our house ready to sell. Thankfully my parents came to town to help and they helped SO much. We played, painted, packed, cleaned, caulked, built, and completed EVERY project! They are amazing and there is NO way the house could be ready without them.
If you’re asking, “WHY would you sell your house after ALL the work you put into it”, here’s my answer… this house was never a “long term” home. It was all we could afford while still owning our Denver home. We bought it with every intention of re-selling it. We didn’t spend much “out of pocket” to COMPLETELY flip this house. Although it was a ton of hours and hard work, if I look at our potential profit as my “wage” for all that hard work I made a pretty good hourly wage!
Because we live in a boomtown where stuff sells fast we decided to sell it by owner. I made up a website, posted it on Craigslist, Consolidated, BisMan, the newspaper, and Facebook, and today we actually had our first showing! We’re praying for a quick and easy sale! Here’s the brochure that I plastered all over town this morning.
So, it’s official, we’re moving! Our new house has a HUGE yard, a beautiful kitchen, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms on the main floor, and is on a street with some REALLY nice expensive houses! It’s not a “fixer upper”, but the yard needs some love and there’s some stuff we will do on the house. It’s definitely move in ready though!
Front of house/driveway/yard:
Sideyard:
 Backyard/Shed:
 Kitchen:
Bathroom:
Living Room:
In case you’re wondering… yes this house has a strong resemblance to our current house, and our Denver house. We are creatures of habit (and we love old ranch houses!)
And of course here’s the final question, “What’s going to happen to the bright green door”??? Â the answer is, “I’m not too sure”! I do love my door, and I have leftover paint, but I just don’t know if green suits the new brown house well? What’s your opinion?
Congratulations! That’s awesome! Hey I say go for a new color door for your new house. 🙂
Thanks! We are super excited. So many options!
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CONGRATS on your NEW home!! Front door color ideas…a different shade of green; bright yellow; robin egg blue OR look on houzz and pinterest for color inspiration OR wait for Pantones 2014 color of the year announcement!
Thanks for all the suggestions! This year’s Pantone of “emerald” wouldn’t cut it but who knows what next year will bring! I like your yellow idea, it might look pretty with the brown.
i love how in your fb post it was like “yeah, so we bought a house at an auction today…” as if you just bought a set of dishes or something, no big deal. fun to read all the details on here though 🙂 i can’t wait to see you put your touch on the new place!! as for the green door, i wouldn’t add it to the new house – your blog name can just serve as an ode to your first dickinson house and all the work you put into it, which was the motivation behind starting the blog in the first place 🙂
I think you’re right about the green door being an ode to this house. You’ve got the design eye too so if you say no green, I’m listening! Do you think I should remove the storm door and paint the door white or something else?
congrats – houses don’t sell that way here in Ontario – very cool! I say paint the door whatever colour you want – change is good!
Cheryl @ The Creative Me and My McG
Thanks! I hadn’t ever been to an auction either but it was pretty fun. It gave me the bug to hit more auctions in the future (for stuff not more houses)!
Yay! Congrats! I can’t wait to see how you make the new house “you” 🙂
Thanks! I’m so excited about it! I just about killed myself getting this house done in a year. I think on the next house it’s going to be “slow and steady”. How’s your house hunt going?
Congrats Jess! So happy for you two. I know this is an old post, but I just wanted to again read it and get the details. LOVE that you guys went for it and that He paved the way and that you came away with a beautiful new house and sold yours fast. Hope you guys are enjoying MN time. Love MN summers. Enjoy some of the lake time for us! Over here it’s pretty hot and dry. So happy for you all.
Aw thanks! it really does feel like God is just walking us right through this. MN was amazing, I’m trying to get there as much as I can this summer. ND doesn’t even come close to comparing. I love your posts too, especially how you have such a positive attitude overcoming so many obstacles in China. Different lives we lead huh?? I love that we can still keep up through blogging though!
I love following Dickinson homes! This is so exciting for you. We will definitely the next time I am there! CONGRATS!
Thank you so much! We are beyond exited! Hope to meet you soon!
Hi, congrats on your new home! Just wondering about the whole auction process. Don’t you need to have A LOT of cash on hand when you bid on a house at auction? Not sure how auctions work? Could you give me information about auctions and what you have to do please? Thanks!
Thank you so much! We’ve been in the house just over a year now and it was the best decision we even made. Each auction company runs things a bit different, but we needed to have 10% down on auction day. I go to quite a few auctions and have seen homes go for outstanding deals. Thankfully after the 10% down we had 60 days to finance the house. Thanks for commenting and stopping by!