Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Home Rejections

How we endured countless home rejections before finding our best yes home.

To make an offer on a home, you first need to visualize yourself there.

You’ll begin by asking yourself practical questions.

Does the flow of the kitchen and bathrooms make sense? Can you see how your furniture might fit in the space? How about waking up to the view outside your bedroom window?

These ponderings are important, but the longer you spend touring a house, the more you’ll encounter deeper questions.

How does this home make me feel? How might I gather loved ones under this one roof? What kind of memories will we make here?

Once you’ve successfully envisioned a life within these walls, you’ll muster up the courage to boldly make a home offer.

But when the offer is rejected, you’ll wonder why you foolishly imagined your life inside a house that was never yours.

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I still remember the first houses we toured.

A week before Christmas in 2022, we met our incredible realtor Sara for four showings on a quiet Friday night. The first snowfall marked the start of winter, creating a snowglobe effect as we drove.

We didn’t feel pressure to put in an offer on night one. Instead, we saw the evening as a blissful opportunity to compare notes before a date night in Stillwater—our favorite town in Minnesota with its riverside charm and historic roots. 

After getting our drinks—a gin cocktail for me and a locally crafted brew for Evan—we toasted to our future. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror along the back of the bar, wearing a hopeful smile that was unashamed of its glee.

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As a kid, I thought searching for my first house would be a starry-eyed adventure, something straight out of House Hunters but with an extra dash of fun and excitement.

Our journey was anything but. 

As winter gave way to spring, every week was littered with showing appointments, texts, and phone calls with our realtor. Sometimes we’d work on multiple offer letters at a time. I tweaked my buyer letter story so many times that the carefully curated words no longer held their original meaning.

It was tiresome when we were ghosted by sellers after giving them what they wanted. It was tiresome when we received stacks of rejection letters every week, but having our shot at owning a lakeside home slip through our fingers in the final hours was devastating.

We were shell-shocked. We thought it was a done deal, but another buyer swooped in with an all-cash offer at the last second. Losing this particular home stung even more because we heard the news the day before we needed to decide to move out or renew our apartment lease.

It felt like the circumstances had forced our hand. 

We were filled with confusion, believing we had faithfully waited to search for homes after grieving an unexpected loss the year prior. No one could argue that we weren’t being proactive and obedient, but the length of our search caused some concern.

One friend suggested that maybe God didn’t want us to have a house. Another family member urged us to call it quits and wait until the market corrected itself.

Everyone seemed to have an opinion, but no one had to experience the pain of rejection like we did.

After seeking guidance in prayer, we renewed our lease with the shortest three-month option to give ourselves more time. We decided to yet again expand our radius, rethink our budget, and pray more for the neighborhood than the house itself.

Little did we know that in two weeks, we’d tour an outdated 1980s home that would soon become God’s best yes for us—immediately following the lake home rejection.

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We just celebrated one year of being in our home two weeks ago.

Our house still has neon green carpet in two rooms and hideous wallpaper on most of the walls. We’ve hit some snags in the renovation process and put most of our money into “unsexy” projects—like adding gutters, replacing a few windows, fixing our chimney, and getting a new roof. 

But we’re making progress—albeit slowly—and consider ourselves blessed to be here. 

With some elbow grease and TLC, we believe this could be the home we will spend decades in. The kind of home where we’ll make updates based on what we envision versus what’s best for resale value, a home that will tell the story of our growing family as it evolves alongside us. 

Whenever I wonder if we’re in the right place, I’m filled with peace, knowing there must be a reason why this was our yes amidst a sea of no’s. And day by day, we get to discover why we were entrusted to steward over this home—and not any other.

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A moment to reflect

What gives you hope during a waiting season?