Since making the decision to not become expats and move to Puerto Vallarta, we have dived head first into getting our Atlanta home sold and preparing for an eventual move to Savannah, Georgia! As fate would have it, my younger Brother John recently purchased a second home in Dublin Georgia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin,_Georgia Dublin is about 2 hours south of Atlanta and is 2 hours away from Savannah so since we needed to move out of our Atlanta house to prepare it for listing, we needed a place to stay. My Brother will rent his home in Dublin to us and this will serve as our temporary based of operations for the frequent trips that we anticipate having to make to Savannah. Dublin is also 40 minutes south of Macon, Georgia where my job is so I will now have a significantly shorter commute for those times that I have to come to the office. We spent the weekend of February 17th in Tybee Island, Georgia to look for a lot on which to build our retirement home. We were connected with a realtor in the Savannah area but our new realtor, Chrissie Khallio, an agent with Sotheby’s. https://www.atlantafinehomes.com/eng/associate/258-a-df20100813211014861/chrissie-kallio We are excited to work with her as she is considered the top agent for our Edgewood Atlanta location an her track record speaks for itself. Our Savannah agent, Gregory Waldhour, https://gregwaldhour.evrealestate.com/ met us on 2/18 and spent the better part of the day driving us around the Tybee Island/Savannah area to see the areas and to get a feel for where we’d like to purchase a lot. We were provided with a list of about 12 potential properties and we spend 2/19 driving around looking at lots. The last development we visited is known as Holly Oaks Estates. We found a lot available (106 Drifton Drive) and touched base with Gregory and learned that there was a pocket listing in the development with marsh front views (120 Drifton Drive). The lot was 1.3 acres and we could see it would be perfect. After giving it some consideration, we decided we would make an offer. Our hope was that we would secure the lot at a great price. The owners of the lot were’nt receptive to our offer and we ultimately concluded that it would be best to consider 106 Drifton which has been on the market for close to a year with no apparent offers. After careful consideration we made an offer and were elated that it was accepted! Our Savannah agent has been outstanding with both responsiveness to us and fiercely advocating for us as clients. We couldn’t be happier with his performance! We are currently under contract for the lot on 106 Drifton Ave and have walked the 1.44 acres with both a builder and an architect. The development has an HOA and stipulates the style of home that can be constructed in the development. While we are both lovers of modern/conemporary homes, the HOA encourages low-country styled homes. We believe that an low-country exterior with contemporary interior is the way we’ll go. The builder and architect both agree that the lot is suitable for building on. We were also able to have a conversation with the developer and got a preliminary approval of our design approach. A more formal approval process will take place once we’ve sold the Atlanta home and are ready to start building in Savannah. The month of March has been a mix of emotions as we prepare to leave the home we’ve known for the past 9 years. I also listed and sold my Baltimore home which was my first home purchase and has been a rental property for the past 9 years. Ultimately, it made sense to unload that house and use the proceeds to tide us over while we wait to see how long it takes to sell our Atlanta home. I have been in purge mode and got rid of clothing that has been hanging in my closet for the past 9 years! I made a nice donation to the American Kidney Foundation. I hope the clothing finds a new home with someone in need. Moving has been very stressful as we have a 2-part strategy. We used PODS and paid local staff to load the boxes that we packed and identified for either Savannah or Dublin. My wonderful husband, Ken has been an excellent project manager and has served as the master-mind for mapping out the meticulously scheduled plan for what needs to happen and when. I can honestly say that if it weren’t for him, I would probably have had a nervous breakdown by now. We are nearing the end of March and presently we are loading the last pod that will go to storage while we wait to build our retirement home. Once the last pod leaves, we need to do a walkthrough with the realtor to identify repair/paint items, finish removing the last of our belongings and settle into the Dublin rental. We are a little apprehensive out going from a 4,000+ square foot home to a 1,421 square foot home. As we tend to be very compatibable from a co-habitation standpoint, we are cautiously optimistic! The Dublin house has 3 bedrooms. The primary will work for us and the 2 smaller bedrooms will serve as both storage and an office. There’s a bonus room that will be an office for me. The next hurdle will be selling our Atlanta home. The market in Atlanta has started to heat up again despite the interest rates and there have been several comps in the neighgorhood that have sold in less that 60 days. Our hope is to get the house sold quickly so we can move forward with obtaining a construction loan and get started on the Savannah home. I look forward to blogging about the progress!