The Drama is OVER - Officially Moved-in and More Thankful Than Ever

Buckle up because I can finally share the crazy story of selling our house. AND I've got questions for YOU about some travel stuff.

May 26, 2023

We are officially moved into our new house in St Augustine Beach, Florida and DONE with the drama of selling our old house. I haven’t been sharing all the details about what went down with selling our house, but if you’ve followed along on Instagram or you know us in real life, you know it’s been insane. Add to that a work trip to San Antonio, all kinds of end-of-the-year school stuff and trying to settle into a new house and it’s been a lot. And PRIDE month emails have been rolling in…

Thanks so much for taking the time to read my notes and posts. I appreciate the thoughtful note and messages, and even the great advice some have sent. Life can be so bumpy and I love having such a huge crew of people in the world supporting from afar. :) At the end of this week’s newsletter I have some questions for YOU about the Florida Keys and South Carolina, so be sure to drop me a note if you can help!

Before the drama and me being negative, we’ve had some BIG moments in our world these last few weeks. Oliver has graduated 5th grade and is officially a middle-schooler. Elliott has moved up from 2nd to 3rd grade, which is so amazing to consider how much he’s grown and learned this year. It’s all just so incredible to look at through the eyes of a parent. I’m so proud of our guys and who they’re becoming.

And PS: I had the most fun chaperoning the 5th grade field trip to Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. I love our school and the kids we’ve gotten to know. We’re so fortunate to be a part of this community!

House Sale Drama: the END

(this is a long, drawn out story so grab a coffee or skip past it for other stuff that’s happening)

So, I’m just going to jump in and share the scoop of what happened this month with selling our house. If you’ve seen photos or been to our house, you know that it was a pretty cool ranch style house with a courtyard, pool, solar panels, detached office… A wonderful house, but ultimately we’ve learned that it was just too small as our family gets older, and we wanted some different things from our long-term home.

With that, we initially got a few offers on the house, and our real estate agents convinced us to accept a lowball offer because the buyer was able to secure home insurance, which has actually been a problem here as insurance companies are having a mass exodus from Florida. So we accepted an offer that was $45k under our initial list price ($35k under our freshly dropped price). Also, they added that they wanted 2% in closing costs ($13k).

Upon accepting the offer we started the whole process of working with agents and providing all the info and transitioning the house to a new owner. That included transferring the solar panel system which cost us $198 per month, which is lower than a power bill. Upon day one we provided all the info about assuming the solar, which was noted in our MLS listing as a “lease”. We provided to all parties info for the switch, including plenty of things that many eyes looked at that ALL said “loan” (this is important later).

We were selling the house as-is, but of course would allow for inspection cuz you need to know what you’re buying… Well, they brought in a septic inspector (understandable) who deemed our tank a fail, despite still working and having a significant amount of life left. Since the sewer just came to our street, the buyer required us to put $20k into an escrow so they could connect. Okay, whatever, we’ll eat that just to wrap things up.

We then learned that since we’re selling the house with the solar panels that we got through an incentive program, we have to repay the initial incentive of $11k+. Whatever, let’s just be done.

Finally, we were at closing week and the buy told us they wanted $10k more from us to cover their higher insurance costs than they planned. We said no and sent a cancellation of contract. They responded by saying no and telling us to fully pay off the solar panels instead of them assuming the panel system through the same program we got them through. We said no. They said they’d see us in court.

Our real estate agents said that they’ve never seen a transaction go this way and provided us with recommendations for lawyers. Apparently this is something that can actually happen if a buyer wants to keep their purchase active. They stated that it was because the very initial MLS listing stated that the panels were leased vs on a loan program, even though on that very first day their agents and our agents ALL had access to all the documents that ALL stated LOAN and nobody blinked at it and EVERYONE had every opportunity to do anything, including back out of the purchase.

But no, they decided they wanted to milk the situation for absolutely everything possible and that if we wouldn’t kick out another $30k they would make sure that our house could not be sold or rented until a judge decided whether or not we intentionally misled the buyer, which we 100% did not and provided the documentation immediately with 100% full transparency.

Anyways, closing day came and they still wouldn’t release us from selling the house to them. We offered $15k towards the solar panels and they accepted. They also signed a Hold Harmless agreement immediately, showing that literally they were just manipulating the situation. The buyer’s agent boasts being there for families and veterans (we’re a family and Chris is a veteran), and yet she was full-on hardball with intimidation tactics on behalf of an investor, not even a family looking to buy a home.

At the end of the day, I have to just not think about it at all. Our net proceeds from the sale of the house were $128k less than our original list price and the buyer’s agent is dancing across Instagram celebrating her great realtor skills. No, I’m not going to say who it was or what the agency was, but for sure we will NEVER be recommending them to anyone again. And yes, we’ve sent several people to them as they’re a local agency and I thought they were great.

So yeah, that’s been the drama. I’m so glad it’s done. Our new house is amazing already and we’re in love with the front patio and being right next to the beach. The kids have bigger rooms, we’ve got an awesome guest room. Chris’s office is wonderful and we’ve got big plans for the backyard. I’m just so glad to be here and trying to put this whole experience out of my mind.

I guess the moral of this story is to listen to your gut. When you’re talking about life events that are big with BIG implications, your gut is often right. When we first got this offer it didn’t feel right. With each communication it felt weird and off. I’ve been taught all my life to trust the pros and that my own intuition is no measurement of reality, but no, I now and forever trust myself more than people who are just out there for a business transaction or who aren’t real faces.

And here’s our new place, stormy as it may be. We love it and can’t wait to really be settled!

What’s up with San Antonio?

So you may have seen last week that I was in San Antonio, Texas. I know: leave FL for TX? But it was for good reason and I actually loved the city itself. San Antonio is the 7th largest city in the USA and is really cool. You may know the Riverwalk from that scene in Cloak and Dagger from the 80s, but there’s a lot more to the city than that.

While there for work stuff, I also squirreled away some time for sightseeing between meetings and events. My work-wife, Keryn, and I strolled the riverwalk, rented scooters to dig into the neighborhoods, visited the Alamo and ate some wonderful meals. I know that I’ll be going back to San Antonio with the family in 2024.

Work Conferences and Travel Blogging - Totally a Thing!

“But why were you there?” Solid question. Last week in my newsletter I shared a bunch of details around how travel blogging works in terms of a career / business. Well, a part of setting up destination and brand partnerships is good old fashioned face-to-face meetings. Yes! We in the travel industry actually get together several times a year to share what we’re all working on and looking to share.

For me, this means that I go to a conference with scheduled meetings where I’ve taken the time to research what sorts of story angles and experiences are a good fit for our websites and our family. Then I meet with 20+ individuals who (ideally) also have researched ME and know how their destination / brand fits into our articles, social media, and the content services we provide.

In our meetings we talk about any specific initiatives or interesting things happening in different destinations, and then I present my ideas about what I think would be good to share with my audience or how I can help a destination’s team with different things. It’s so great to be able to meet people face to face and see their actual reaction when I sit down to chat. I can usually tell within the first minute if we’ll be doing a project with the destination / brand in the future.

If you are interested in THIS SPECIFIC TOPIC, please leave a comment to let me know. I love talking about the business side of blogging and am happy to share more details!

Our Columbia, South Carolina Trip

This weekend we’re heading north to Savannah and then onto Columbia, South Caroline and Congaree National Park. This is one of those trips / projects that’s a direct result of one of my conferences and getting to talk face to face with people!

We’ve got some pretty cool activities on the itinerary for this trip, including:

the Columbia Museum of Art
Anne Frank Center
Congaree National Park for fireflies
river kayaking with the kids (rapids!)
and so much good food.

Be sure to follow along on Instagram for the daily update while we’re exploring, and then we’ll share everything on the blog too. If you have any MUST-SEE stops between Savannah and Columbia, be sure to let us know!

Last time we were in South Carolina it was cold and wet, so this trip will be a total 180!

REQUEST: Florida Keys Recommendations

Last thing I wanted to put out there this week is our upcoming trips to the Florida Keys. We’re been lots of times, but we’ve got two trips down this summer and I’d love to hear people’s recommendations. We know the popular spots and sights, but if you found anything from Key Largo to Key West that you thought was just a gem of a restaurant or activity, I’d love to add it to one of our itineraries.

We’ll be doing snorkeling and getting out on the water, we’ve got some Key West Pride activities, and we’ll be in 5 different hotels during our trips, so whatever you think would be good to add, please tell me!

I think that’s it for this week! Next week I’ll be sharing a recap of everything we did, experienced and ate in South Carolina, as well as lots to share about PRIDE and all my thoughts, feelings and suggestions for life.

Have a wonderful weekend, and thank you so much for following along and subscribing to my newsletter. I really appreciate the support and love to share our unique journey through life. Happy travels!

Rob’s Substack