We had a plan. It was a good plan.
Sell our home in Wyoming. Load everything onto a moving trailer. Find a home in California. Move in. Done.
I have learned, at this point in my life, that plans like that are adorable.
The trailer
We packed everything we owned onto a moving trailer. And I mean everything. The furniture. The kitchen. The kids’ stuff. The things you forget you even own until you need them and they are sealed inside a metal box somewhere in a storage facility two states away.
Here is the part the moving company does not lead with: you cannot access your trailer until you schedule a delivery date. And you cannot schedule a delivery date until you have an address to deliver to. And you cannot have an address until you have a house.
We did not have a house.
So our entire life sat on that trailer. For two months.
The California market
I want to be careful here because I do not want this to sound like complaining. We went in with our eyes open — mostly. We knew California was competitive. We did not know what competitive actually meant until we were living inside it.
Cash buyers. Everywhere. Offering $50,000 to $100,000 over asking price. Sometimes more. On houses that were not worth it. On houses that were worth it. On every single house we wrote an offer on.
We lost count of how many offers we wrote. At some point we stopped being selective about it. I would tour houses daily and if I liked something even a 7 out of 10 it got an offer. We were writing offers on more than half of everything I walked through just hoping something would stick. I stopped telling people the number because the looks on their faces were starting to bother me.
Our routine became this: house hunt from 8am until about 2 in the afternoon. Go back to the temporary housing and let the kids swim while I searched for the next day’s homes to tour. Then do it all over again. Every single day. Rinse and repeat for two months straight.
Meanwhile the kids were in an unfamiliar place, asking questions I did not have good answers to. The trailer fees were our responsibility after the first month — around $180 a day. Every day we did not have a house was another $180. I started doing that math in my head without meaning to, the way you do when something is quietly stressing you out constantly.
It was not like we were not trying
I want to be clear about something. We were not just throwing offers at the wall hoping something landed. We were strategic about it.
We had already sold our Wyoming home so there was no contingency hanging over our head. No “subject to sale” clause making us look risky. We came in with a large down payment to show we were serious buyers. We tightened our due diligence deadlines to make our offers more attractive. On the houses I really wanted I made a portion of our earnest money non-refundable upon acceptance. That is not a small thing. That is putting real money on the table with no guarantee of getting it back.
We did everything right. We were strong buyers by any reasonable standard.
And we kept losing.
That is the California market. You can be qualified, prepared, strategic, and aggressive and still take loss after loss after loss because the person across the table is writing a check with no financing contingency and no inspection and $75,000 over asking price and there is simply nothing you can do about it.
We just kept taking the L. And showing up the next morning at 8am to do it again.
How we got the house
I wish I could tell you we found the right agent, or wrote a better offer letter, or got strategic about it.
We got lucky. A deal fell through on a house and we happened to be next in line. That is the whole story. There was no brilliant move on our part. There was no moment of clarity or turning point. Someone else’s deal fell apart and we were standing in the right spot when it did.
We got the call. We said yes before they finished the sentence. We scheduled the delivery date before we hung up the phone.
The day that trailer pulled up was one of the best days of my life. My kids ran to find their stuff. I stood in the driveway and watched the movers carry in boxes and felt something I can only describe as profound relief that we would never have to do that particular thing again.
What I want you to know before you pack a single box
I am a realtor in Utah County now. I specialize in helping families relocate — a lot of them from California, actually, going the other direction. And when clients come to me excited about their move, full of good plans, I think about that trailer.
Not to scare them. But because nobody scared us and I think it would have helped.
So here is what I want you to know:
If you are relocating to a competitive market — any competitive market — do not assume the timeline you planned is the timeline you will get. Have a backup plan for housing. Know what your temporary housing options are before you need them. Understand what happens to your belongings if the move drags out. Know the daily cost of that trailer sitting still.
Cash buyers are real and they are not going away. In certain markets they will beat you repeatedly and there is not much you can do about it except stay in the game, keep your agent close, and try not to do the $180-a-day math too often.
The deal that falls through for someone else might be the one that saves you. We did not earn our house. We just did not quit before luck showed up. Sometimes that is the whole strategy.
Having the right agent on both sides of a relocation matters more than most people realize. Not just someone who knows how to write an offer — someone who knows how to prepare you for what you are actually walking into. Someone who will tell you the truth about the market before you pack your entire life into a trailer.
I did not have that. I am trying to be that for the people I work with now.
If you are relocating to Utah County
I am Kelsie Jimenez, a listing and relocation specialist in Utah County with The Perry Group | Real Broker LLC. I work with families who are selling here and buying here, and with families coming from out of state — California especially — who are trying to figure out this market before they make the move.
If you want a straight conversation about what to expect, I am happy to have it. No pitch. Just honesty from someone who has been in the suitcases.
You can reach me at 801.420.2284 or kelsie.utah@gmail.com
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