We’re Moving: Why We’re Selling Our First Home During the Pandemic

Yep, only 14 months after we moved into our cute little yellow house, she’s on the market again.

In typical us fashion, the time between when we made the decision to sell and start looking at other homes and when it actually went on the market was about three weeks. We don’t mess around.

The people who know us personally are probably not that shocked – we’ve lived in four states in the six years we’ve been together – but being that we actually owned this house, it’s kind of a surprising pivot.

But, the pandemic has changed us. Without getting too sappy and turning everyone away, this is the house where I’ll always remember Alex recovering from his cancer surgery, my feet up in the living room eating ice cream with a huge pregnant belly, and baby Eleanor’s newborn cries bellowing down the hallway. It’s going to be hard to say goodbye, but we’re ready for a new project and a fresh start in a different location.

We were actually recently featured on a pandemic pivot episode of the A Beautiful Mess podcast, where they were talking about all the life changes people have made during quarantine. They mentioned us starting a blog while in isolation—not selling our house! A whole combination of things went into our deciding to step away from our first cute little home, so let’s break it down.

Why We’re Selling Our House

The Housing Market is Hot

I suppose it makes sense when you think about it, but it’s a seller’s market right now. With people having been cooped up for the last four or five months, many homeowners have realized that their house isn’t big enough, or they aren’t happy where they are. This realization has led to a surge in buying and selling activity as families look to change things up while they can.

If you’ve been wondering, “Is now the right time to sell a house?” you’re not alone. The competitive real estate market has inspired us to list our home sooner rather than later. We never planned to live in Louisiana forever and worried that if we sat on the house for another year or two, it might lose value as we move deeper into any economic issues the pandemic might bring.

Having a Baby Changes Everything

We’ve had a whirlwind year. If you’re new here, check out our About Us page to read about it, but the highlights are marriage > house buying > cancer > baby > pandemic. We got through it all just fine (with a bit of a never-ending eye twitch and nervous laughter) until the baby came along two weeks before the world shut down. Since then, we’ve been isolated.

Adjusting to life as new parents during a pandemic has been challenging, especially while working from home without daycare. We’ve realized how much we need a support system and a living space that works for our family. For anyone considering a move, the combination of baby-proofing needs and work-from-home setups might resonate as a key reason for relocating.

Moving to a Better Location

While we love our neighborhood and the up-and-coming vibe of our city, we’re aiming to make it back to the Florida Panhandle. Two years ago, we lived there before this move, and it still feels like home. We don’t have family there (unfortunately, being from different countries means we’ll never figure out being close to everybody), but we loved being by the beach. Plus, we have lots of friends there with little ones around Eleanor’s age. It’s our happy place.

Living near the beach offers so many benefits, from outdoor activities to the calming presence of ocean waves. If you’ve ever thought about relocating to a beach town, we totally get it! We already have an offer in on a house there, but we’ll wait until it’s all set before sharing more details.

What’s Next?

If you’ve made it this far, I commend you for reading my ranting about our life. It’s been so crazy and stressful, but we really feel like this is the right move for us. Our job situation is a little up in the air, but we’re confident it will all work out. There’s probably some basic white girl phrase about living out of your comfort zone that applies here… let’s just go with that!

We put together a checklist how we got our house ready to list in only two weeks. (Spoiler alert: it involves decluttering, DIY touch-ups, and a lot of coffee.) Hopefully, our chaos will help inspire your strategy in the future.

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