The first home we sold we received an offer from the first buyer that looked at it, 24 hours after it went on the market. We were so excited!! Until we realized we needed to find a place to live! Panic set in!
This was in the early 2000’s, so closing was scheduled for 30 days after acceptance of offer. Our Realtor happily showed us every home on the market that met our criteria. Fourteen days before closing we had no home to move towards. The dreaded multi-move became a reality.
We did not have family in the area, nor friends who could accommodate our family and theirs. We thankfully were able to find a short-term rental. It was a 2 bedroom, 1 bath very small two-story townhome. Our boys were on summer break; it was going to be cozy!
When we packed up we did not know how long we would be in the rental. I knew I had to be ultra organized to make moving twice doable. Some of our possessions were going to storage. The ones coming with us were going to be stacked in every nook and corner of the town home with furniture in front of them. This was the beginning of June so I was going to put all our winter gear in storage. But what if we were in the rental until Christmas? This is when I came up with my Packing Plan.
My packing plan allowed me to sleep at night because I knew where my gravy boat was in case we were in the rental until Thanksgiving! I knew that in box 405 was the Trouble game (a metaphor of my life at the time). It let me know what boxes needed to be unpacked at the rental and which ones could live in the corners.
What I Learned from this Experience
The multi-move is survivable. I will never say it is fun, but with organization, a good attitude and my packing plan we all came out alive.
The multi move is better than satisficing. We could have written an offer on a couple of homes that were close to what we wanted, they would have sufficed, but not really satisfied.
You can make difficulties into an adventure and build strong family bonds. Our sons were 10 and 7 years old at the time. We got them involved in the Packing plan, figuring out where everything was going to fit and finding creative activities to do that summer that kept us out of tight quarters as much as possible.