Can you accidentally buy a house?

By Bruce Stambaugh

Is it possible to accidentally buy a house? I suppose so since we did.

I’ve attended auctions where someone has scratched their head or waved to a friend, only to hear the astute auctioneer bellow out, “SOLD!” Once the dust settled, the person embarrassingly explained his way out of the unintentional purchase.

Buying this house didn’t work that way for my lovely wife and I. Nor did we even try to back out. Once the hammer dropped, we enthusiastically signed on the dotted line. And we signed and signed and signed.

It didn’t take long to appreciate the consequences of our unintentional intentional purchase. We were in it for the long haul. “It” is moving to the Commonwealth of Virginia. We had our very personal reasons.

To uncomplicate this complicated story of our apparently surprise transaction, let me begin at the beginning. It might even help me to grasp what has truly transpired.

Our daughter and her family, which includes our only grandchildren, live in Harrisonburg, Virginia. They love it there. They work there. They play there. They even went to school there, Eastern Mennonite University to be exact. Their alma mater employs both our daughter and her husband.

In fact, our daughter is the head coach for the women’s volleyball team. She’s very busy August into November preparing for and playing the season. Of course, we want to watch her team in action. So over the mountains and through the woods we go from our home in Holmes County, Ohio to the magnificent in any season Shenandoah Valley, home to Harrisonburg.

In these hectic times, Carrie needs our help, well, at least my wife’s. Neva is the engine that keeps the household humming. With three busy youngsters, someone needs to see they are fed, watered, and clothed. Add in going to doctor appointments, baseball, choir, and soccer practices, and their schedules resemble those of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

Consequently, we spend much of the fall helping in Harrisonburg. We also make several six-hour trips from Ohio to Virginia to attend the grandchildren’s events throughout each year.

We’re not spring chickens anymore. So we began to consider moving to the valley. To see what our money could potentially buy, our realtor friend scheduled some house tours for us.

The last place got our attention. We wanted a turnkey home, one floor, no basement, smaller lot, a two-car garage, and municipal sewer and water. This little ranch had it all. The owners had also remodeled it just the way we would have done it ourselves. We immediately felt at home.

There were issues, however. We weren’t exactly ready to buy a home, according to our established moving timeline. At first, that was no problem because another couple had already put in a bid on this house.

However, those potential buyers and the sellers couldn’t agree on a price. Excuse the pun, but that opened the door for us. So we made an offer. In a matter of head-spinning hours, we had a deal. The house was ours. I signed the sales agreement electronically online. Neva signed on the hood of a car in a parking lot at 10:30 at night.

Apparently, we indeed wanted this house. We had better. We now owned it. Intent on keeping to our timeframe, excellent renters were quickly found for our new home.

If everything goes as planned, which it has so far, we will become Virginians by next summer. So there you have it.

Can you accidentally buy a house? Yes. You. Can.

© Bruce Stambaugh 2016