How To Avoid A Panic Attack (7yr 7mo!)

CET are 91 months old and still can't smile naturally for the cameras, ha!

How to avoid a panic attack?
Step 1. Do not sell and buy a house simultaneously.
The end.

You would think being pregnant and then raising baby triplets would be one of the most stressful things I've ever dealt with. That is not the case. I knew it would be stressful and very difficult to pull off, seeing as how insane the real estate market in Portland is but I just didn't know how bad it would actually be.

A little less than a year ago we got the notion to sell our place and get a much needed bigger home. We contemplated moving to a near by city were home prices are much cheaper and where they also have a Spanish Immersion elementary school for the kids. The commute to work would still be around 30 min via light rail or bike. However after talking to the school we found out that it would be too difficult to get all three boys transferred (triplet problems yet again). We lamented on how much easier our lives would be if we just didn't care about our children, hahaha! We are very adamant about keeping them in the highly sought after language immersion program at least until middle school. So we'd have to shell out the bigger bucks to stay in our neighborhood. The homes in our hood are flying off the shelves with multiple offers each. We figured selling would be easy but buying would not. That was an understatement for both!

Our strategy was to buy first and then sell. The home selection was meager at best so when one less than perfect house popped up we made an offer $20k over asking. It was a great house but the kitchen would need to be remodeled ASAP. Well we were not the only ones that liked it because there was a total of 9 offers made. Let me spell it out, N.I.N.E.! Two were cash offers, needless to say, after many stomach churning hours we found out that we did not get this one. Literally a day after we were rejected on this house another one popped up in an even better location and an even better layout. There was a mistake on the listing that showed the house as being much smaller than it actually was (I almost dismissed the house because of this). We went to see the house the same day it came out and made an offer the next day, $20K over asking. But the seller wasn't dumb to just run with our "great offer" (the house was very under priced). They wanted to wait another two days to review more than one offer. We thought, "oh good at least it won't go over the weekend and pick up steam." Well Friday came and there were already 4 other offers on the table. We decided to go big or go home. We offered $51K over asking price. After several stomach churning hours our offer was accepted! And we beat out a cash offer! Take that stupid cash offers, ruining it for everybody else!

Then it sank in, OMG we HAVE to sell our house fast! Because well, two house payments would not have been fun. We put our house on the market just a few days after our offer was accepted and the response was overwhelming. Over 30 groups of people with their agents came to see our house over two and a half days following the listing day (mid week too!). By Friday we got three great offers well over asking price. Now we wait...ugh so much stomach churning anticipation! A week until the inspection happens (no knowing what will come up with a 116 year old house!). The day comes and goes and no resolution still, the guy wants to call in every contractor known to man! Roof, foundation, furnace, arborist, radon, geez! Finally the last couple of hours of the allowed inspection period we finally got the repairs addendum. It was not pretty, it scared the crap out of us until our agent talked to their agent and said it was "their pie in the sky list." We met half way and finally some closure, not that it's final closure yet. Now we wait some more to close....

I was seriously having to stave off panic attacks, luckily enough I was able to talk myself out of all of them and keep them under control but man it felt awful! I've never experienced anything like this before in my life. About a week ago we smoothly closed on both houses. The panic attacks subsided in that instance. I will never attempt this again, never again in my life time!!! Never again, never again...now the fun begins, packing up 11 years of our lives will need it's own blog post, ha!

Mr T looking as handsome and dashing as ever!