After we had lived in Rochester for 15 years we concluded that our first house was no longer where we wanted to live so we began the search for another house. Our criteria included being in the same ward we lived in and near the stake center since we had many more years of kids in Cub Scouts, Young Men activities, and seminary. So we targeted Parkwood Hills for a house. None of the houses on the market appealed to us and satisfied our price constraints. So I decided to ask everyone in Parkwood Hills personally if they wanted to sell their house or knew a neighbor who might want to. I planned to go door-to-door on evenings and Saturdays asking the question and leaving a card with my name and number on it for later contact.
I had only been searching for a couple hours and had contacted perhaps 15 people when I knocked on the door of an obviously-bigger-than-I-expected-we-could-afford house. When the door opened, I could see directly into the foyer and the dining room along with the split level living room and family rooms. The amount of stained wood struck me as awesomely wonderful. (I love stained oak.) It was everywhere: in railings crisscrossing the view and beside the stairs. I was young enough then to have never entertained the idea that I would someday prefer to have few or no stairs in a house. So these stairs and railings captured my fancy. I instantly told myself we could never afford a house this beautiful. Then I did my three sentence door approach about wanting to buy a house in Parkwood hills but rather than saying the expected, “No, sorry, we love it here and don’t want to move and don’t know any neighbor who is thinking of leaving,” the guy smiled broadly and urged me to come in. He said, “You are the answer to our prayers! We have had the house on the market for six months and just last week our contract with our realtor ran out so we took it off the market. Then yesterday my central personnel office called and said I could have my applied-for transfer to Kentucky if I want it! Having not sold the house we were despairing of being able to take the transfer and move back closer to family. So we have been praying for someone to want to buy our house. We will sell it to you for what we paid for it seven years ago. Since we have no realtor contract, there will be no real estate commission and we will pass all that savings and more on to you.” He rushed to his office and brought out all the documents about the house they had been using for the showings etc. and the price on the forms was considerably more than his offer to us but his offering price was considerably less than I expected to have to pay for the house when I first gazed in through the open door. I felt a wave of rightness come over me about the situation. I left and drove around until I found Cheryl out on an errand and said, “You have to come see this house right now.” She loved it. The boys loved it. And we bought it. It was a great house for us and had no unrevealed defects. It was to me a miracle for both us and the sellers. We later met several other people who knew this family. They universally acclaimed them as wonderful and honest and faithful folks and were not surprised that a miracle happened for them. We have always been glad it happened for us.