Two Houses

I never wanted to own two houses. A neighbor of ours (we'll call him Charlie) moved out to get his kids into a different school and his house sat vacant for about three years. I felt really bad for him, but I always told myself there was no way I was going to do that. Hmm ... I should listen to myself more often.

Now I find myself in a similar situation for similar reasons. Our house has been on the market since March and we haven't had any offers yet. About a week ago, someone moved into Charlie's house. They're doing a lease-to-purchase and I talked with Charlie when he pulled up to the house. Odd that we happened to meet when neither of us lives in the neighborhood anymore. We talked about our situations and I described to him my conversations with myself (see above). He laughed and I went on to tell him we felt good about the choice and we felt like God would take care of us. He then told me that although they were really strapped carrying two mortgages, he had seen God take care of him. He said God had placed work in front of him in really amazing ways and although they had very little savings, he has always had enough work to take care of his family and his obligations. This from a small business owner in some very difficult economic times. I felt a really sweet feeling come over me as he described his experiences. Charlie is a good man and I wish him the best.

Now I'm hoping we can find someone to buy or lease-to-purchase our old house. We tried really hard to make sure the two mortgages wouldn't stretch us beyond our capacity, but I'm uncomfortable with this much debt. It will be really nice when we can turn one of those into some cash. Given the state of the economy and the real estate market, I don't know when that will happen. But I'm trusting God to take care of us. I felt like He led us to make these decisions and I believe everything will work out for the best, whatever that means.