SOLD!

We just sold our old house. This is the house that we moved out of a year ago and have rented for the past year. We are now down to just the one house we live in (and our weekend home on our property). This year we really just wanted to get rid of it, so we listed it with Elizabeth Chappell for really cheap. It sold in a couple of weeks...she really does have good advertising and a good team.
We lived in this house for 2 years. It was our second house in the neighborhood. Before we bought it, we saw it go up for sale and then stay for sale for months and months. One day we decided to go inside and look. It was so cheap and it had some really nice upgrades as compared to what our first home was like: hardwood floors, open 2 story living room, silestone counters, an open kitchen, a nice banister, a 5 foot extension on the garage. We thought about it for a while and prayed about it and decided to go for it. The real estate market was still really high, and we got an awesome deal. Within a few months of moving into this house, we decided that we didn't love it. The floor plan was nice, but it turns out that it didn't work as well with small children. We missed the culdesac and our old huge backyard. We really preferred carpet in our living room. We stayed for two years, and I didn't mind it so much, but Joe really disliked it after a while.
Last year, when we were trying to sell it to get into this house, we couldn't get anyone to buy it. Finally we put it up for rent (there are very few rentals in our neighborhood, so they go pretty quickly) and it rented. We have had phenomenal renters who took great care of our house. Now we are selling it and closing a couple of days after the renters move out.
Overall, we didn't make any money on this house, and if you consider tax breaks, we didn't really lose money either...most importantly we don't have to show up to closing with cash. In this market that is all you can ask for. It was a lot of work to move twice and we put a lot of work into that house. We did learn a lot about what we want and don't want in a house, so that was good for us. We also learned that we probably shouldn't have a side business in flipping houses. I'm okay with that.
I'm just glad it sold.