The Journey To Our Forever Home

Did you know that December 26th is National Homeowner’s Day?

Honestly, the two national holidays I usually celebrate are National Dog Day (yes… all five of them 😉) and National Margarita Day, but when I found out about this one, I had to add it to the list of celebrations!

Because home ownership is a BIG DEAL and deserves to be celebrated as such.

If you don’t yet own a home, you might not fully understand the emotional attachment that people have to their homes, but I can tell you firsthand, this is a REAL thing.

Last year as I was planning for the year ahead and setting my sights on 2023, I couldn’t overlook one of the most exciting moments of the year… and its closing chapter. 

For the full story on that, make sure you read The Story of Sunbeam AKA The House That Built Me.

That post alone gives greater insight as to what homeownership can really mean for you if you don’t yet own a home and if you do, my hope is that it encourages you to embrace the celebration that is so deserved! 🎉

This year as I sit back and think about all that 2023 brought with it, I’m finding myself in another state of reflection that has a lot to do with homeownership yet again!

This time, it’s all about the journey to our FOREVER home. 🏡

The Right House Will Find You – You Won’t Find It

For any of this to make sense at all, you need a little backstory. 

In 2022, I started building what I thought at the time would be the house I lived in for a veryyy long time. 

Building a house of my own was a huge step for me and it’s something I was SO proud of! It was the first time I ever did something big like that on my own.

The house I’m referring to is Sunbeam, so for the full breakdown of how I got to this point, read here.

In November of 2022, I closed on the home, moved in (and LOVED it), but there was just one problem…

It was essentially Barbie’s dream house… not Ken’s. Meaning it didn’t have room for my people.

In the meantime, my boyfriend Jason had his own house too. So I was going back and forth between his place and mine until one day we both asked, “what are we doing?”

We basically already lived together, so we really didn’t need two homes. 

But yet again… the same problem was there. His house really didn’t fit all of us either – all of us being me, him, and his two teenage boys.

During this time we thought about building UNTIL we found a home that *at the time* felt like  the perfect mixture of the two of our existing homes.

At the time, we were just so excited to find something that felt like we could blend our lives easily.

And then… we get there. We close on the house, move in, and realize WAIT. This actually isn’t right at all. 

It didn’t have all the amenities we needed or wanted, we wanted to make some updates, and it honestly ended up being way more work than it was worth in the end. Oddly enough, it ended up being too small. The irony. 

But what do you do in this moment? We had been looking and looking and nothing else fit the  bill either. So we essentially just decided that we’d have to make it work. 

At the SAME time of all this, we were also searching for a property in Florida (because why would we not want to add a little extra chaos to the mix? 😂).

While Billings will always be home to both of us, we both crave a sunshiney getaway wayyyy too often not to have a place of our own somewhere where it doesn’t snow in the spring. 😅

One day Jason sent me a link to a house and I thought, “oh! He’s found a Florida home that he likes!”

Nope…

It was an active listing in Billings. 

Immediately I had question marks going off in my head??? We already have a house in Billings! What’s this?!

The day he sent me that listing, we scheduled a showing and we immediately knew… THIS is the one.

I can hardly even explain to you how aligned this home felt. It checked almost every box we had, it had plenty of room for all of our needs, the vibe was just RIGHT. 

So, we decided to add some more chaos to the mix and made an offer. 

We were able to sell our home and actually beat out other offers because you know what they say… when it’s meant to be, it will be. 

That’s not to say the road to closing was perfectly smooth (it rarely ever is) – we had to jump through a few hoops and honestly anything you could be hit with, we were.

But we did it. Our forever family home. 💛

The moral of this story? The right house will find YOU. You won’t find it.

Working in real estate, so many times I see people trying to force things. 

And as much as I try to do everything I can to help them get the home they want, the truth is that when you force it, it rarely ends up working out. 

It’s SO worth it to wait for the right one. 

And as silly as it might sound, houses are truly so special.

They aren't just the place where you live, but they're the place where you become who you’re meant to be. I REALLY believe that!

With that said, your house also has to match the phase of life you’re in.

Remember my Barbie dream house? It was absolutely perfect for that stage of life. But as I grew and evolved, the house needed to as well.

My hope is that you let this story be a note of encouragement that if you’re looking and looking for your forever home, it WILL come at the right time.

Don’t force it. Embrace where you’re at and watch what happens!