Aspen Lane House Has Sold!!!

It is done!  We have closed on our house in Park City.  As of yesterday we no longer own property in the USA.  About a month after the initial offer came in the house is now owned by a new family.  Ashley and I are happy and sad at the same time. After our summer in Park City we knew it was not a place we want to come back to so we put it up for sale and luckily for us the right buyer came forward and is now the new owner.

Aspen Lane August 2018

At the end of October Ashley headed to Park City on her own and started organizing, donating and selling anything that would not be coming back with us to Mexico.  The kids and I joined her on the November 1st and we packed up the last of our remaining items that would fit in a suitcase or duffle bag. Seeing our artwork, furniture house stuff etc drive off with other people was difficult.  Pretty much everything in the house that was still there had some kind of memory attached to it from our time there.

The kids were patient and did not give us much grief for being bored since they were too busy just trying to stay warm under puffy down jackets, socks, beanies and blankets.  It snowed too!  They loved to see old photos of us and our families before they came along.  Friends and neighbors stopped by to say hello and some to even pick up items that they wanted for their own.  Everyone knew how we loved that house since many friends really enjoyed the house as well.  It just had a good feel to it and one could sense that just sitting in the living room.  The house just felt right.

During our time at the house we receive the buyer's pre-purchase inspection report.  The items that needed to be attended to were substantial to say the least.  Some things were not unexpected for a 40 year old house, some items were a surprise and some items were things we knew we couldn't pay for.  Lacking time or money to set everything straight pre-purchase we hoped that the buyer would come back with an amount to deduct from the purchase price to make up for the inspection issues.  Until that happened, all we could do was to keep packing so that we did not have to return to Park City at some later date.

After about 5 days of work, the kids and I left Ashley alone to finish the job and headed back to Mexico with 11 bags of personal and house items.  If we did not get to LAX and then on to PVR we may have had to stay somewhere until we could get seats to come home.  Fortunately we were able to  get to both destinations flying "stand by" and by the time we arrived in Puerto Vallarta all our luggage had made it as well.  Ashley stayed on to ship, clean and tie up lose ends and say her own "good byes" to the Aspen Lane house.  

During that time she had a chance meeting with the buyer.  Not something that usually happens but they introduced themselves to each other and had a bit of a visit.  Apparently the buyer had been recently widowed and had a 10 year old daughter and were relocating to Park City from an outlying town to be able to attend school in the school district.  The house reminded him of the time he spent with his wife in Maine and really wanted to make the deal work...and so did we.  He loved the house and the fact that it would continue to be occupied by a family made Ashley and I feel good about handing it off to new owners who would make their own memories.

The last sunrise from the Park City house.

Shortly after the kids and I got home and Ashley returned to Atlanta we received news from our realtor with an updated offer for a sale price deduction based on the items that needed to be remedied.  It was substantial though not really surprising and we agreed to the price deduction just to be able to walk away and allow the new owner to take care of items he felt were necessary to correct.  Just yesterday we received news that the deal was done and could see the funds that were wired to Ashley's account following the closing.  It was a cash offer so things went very smoothly with no banks involved for financing etc.

We are sad to leave the house but we are happy another family is excited to make it home.  We now turn to our construction project in Mexico that has been limping to the finish line due to an unresponsive contractor and capital we just didn't have any more of.  It is time to make memories in our new home south of the border.

Sale Pending!!

We have received and accepted an offer on the Park City house.  Now we wait, cross our fingers that nothing gets in the way or goes wrong and we close on schedule in November.  Needless to say we are VERY happy to have an offer come in!

It's Official! Our House In Park City, Utah Is For Sale!

We are selling our house in Park City!  The house we bought before we got married. The house we brought both kids home to after being born.  The decision seemed to come out of no where.  We never intended to sell and told everyone as much.  But as we drove away and headed to the airport our discussion in the car changed from "no way" to "let's ask some questions and crunch some numbers".

The house will be listed by our amiga, Jennifer Johnson, with Equity Real Estate Luxury Group.  Jennifer was also our Realtor when we bought the house back in 2003.  Her # is 435-901-1704.

We spent 6 full weeks putting the house back together and spent lots of $ doing so. Looking at the money that will continue to go out each month to pay for the improvements is steep.  Add that to the money out to pay for and finish the Sayulita house and the financial benefits of selling significantly outweigh the argument for keeping it.

These are some photos that our realtor had taken of the property by Kellie Hatcher Photography. We think they are great.  Makes me even sadder to see how good the house looks after working on the place for six weeks.  We still enjoy the mountains, are close to many people there and love our neighbors on the street but it just isn't the place we want to come back to when there are so many great places to go visit in the world.

The market is up, inventory is low and the rental market is saturated with similar properties to rent.  The house looks good and is empty to allow our Realtor to do her thing and see if she can find a buyer.  We are sad but at the same time we feel relief at the idea that selling the house off may pave the way to bigger experiences rather than putting more money and time into something we may never have the means to really fix up properly.  Our kids are unfazed by the idea since they were very young when they lived there and feel Sayulita is home too.  Hopefully, another family can pick it up and love it as much as we did.  Crossing fingers we can find a buyer soon.