how to change your life in 5 days: part II

monday we weren't even prequalified for a home.
tuesday we were in contract for a new home.
thursday we listed our home.
friday we sold our home.

see i wasn't kidding about the 5 days thing?

like i mentioned, we had been looking for a long time at houses and knew we would want to upgrade in the upcoming year or so. but there were also other big changes we were considering so house hunting wasn't at the top of the priority list. while justin was in carson in january, he found our house. it had been listed over 250 days and was still available. at first glance, i thought 'wow what a dump' but he kept talking about the possiblities and space, so i gave it at shot and checked it out. we looked at several houses one weekend he was home and this was the last house we saw. it was for sure the oldest, needed the most work, the most expensive but also the one with the most possibilities. i was sold! justin was still gone so we knew it would be a while before we could make an offer so nothing was really decided. then he came home, we started talking about the house again and started to get prequalified. then it sold.

we were disappointed but i believed it just wasn't meant to be. it was out of our price range and they wouldn't accept any offers on contingency- meaning we had to sell our house, hope the house was still available and that we got it. that's a whole lot of risk!

a few weeks later justin noticed that the house went back on the market again so we decided to put in an offer. we figured that we could put our best offer in and hope for the best. we knew there were two other offers on the table so a lowball offer had a slim chance of getting picked. we offered 20k under and asked for closing. it was pretty hectic trying to get prequalified so quickly but it happened. we got our offer in at 7pm and hoped to hear back in two weeks. at 6am the next morning we got a text that said the seller [it's government own] liked our offer. imagine our surprise! by 4pm that night we were signing papers and ponying up earnest money!

but we had to sell our house. asap as possible.

justin's dad has his real estate license and helped us get our current house but we knew we needed a full time agent if we wanted a quick sale on our house. we ended up using the agent who was representing our new house for only 1% commission [standard is 3%]. i started frantically packing up our clutter, hiding our personal effects and cleaning like a mad woman! we took pictures on wednesday and listed our home by thursday at 2pm. at 4pm we got a request for a showing that night.

**side story- when i got the call for the first showing, i was busy making dinner for the missionaries who were coming over shortly. my house was a mess and stunk like food. landon's laundry was half spread out all over his room. packed boxes were piled all across the house. porter had just broken a glass cup and a plate. thankfully my mom was in town for this day only so i called her in a panic and she showed up with my brother's girlfriend and started helping me clean. i felt terrible ignoring the missionaries [i told them to eat quick]  but my mom kept them company. they ended up helping a bit and justin and his dad showed up at the end too for the heavy lifting. we got things cleaned up and nice in the knick of time**

as we got ice cream the night of the first showing, i was having contractions from having exerted myself too much that day, we wondered how long it would take to sale. i just could not keep a house clean for that long with two boys! we had listed our home on the lower end in our neighborhood - and we have the nicest house by far. hoping that would gardner a lot of attention, we hoped for the best. the next morning we got a call saying the first people loved our house and would put an offer in soon. we showed the house all of friday - our agent receieved dozens of requests! that felt like a huge compliment because we have put in a lot of work in at our house. that night we got the offer - 10k above asking and we jumped on it. honestly, we could have gotten more money but we wanted a quick sale. if we had accepted multiple offers, we would have had to give people chances to counter and that means time.

this is why i have boys
3 generations of harrison men at work

*side note: during the appraisal, our house came in right at asking price so we had to lower the price. boo! thankfully we only lowered 7k. we still think our house was worth more and could have gotten more with more time, but it was better for a quick sale.

we closed on our house last week and our new house closes this week - so we had that equity to put down. again, a huge leap of faith because in house buying, there are always extensions. but justin and i have felt heavenly father's hand so much in this experience. we never should have gotten into the house we're in now but we did. we shouldn't have gotten the new house but we did. we shouldn't have sold our house as quickly as we did. i really feel like this is the best move for us. but it's a huge leap of faith.

the house is 30+ years old - a dinosaur in las vegas. it has concrete walls, something almost unheard of, but really helps keep the house cool. like insanely cool for vegas but it'll be hard to change things structurally. it's in a spanish style [arches and tile]. on over half an acres [that's huge for vegas]. has 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms! a personal gate, is off the main road, and shares a pool/tennis court/club house with three other houses. this is for sure our forever home!

we're a bit scared, thinking maybe we have bitten off more then we can chew. but we are in it for the long haul and just think what we can accomplished in 10-15-20 years. this house is big enough for us to grow and be happy at for a long time. and we are growing our own labor force to help us with our ever-growing list of projects. so come to vegas and visit us- we now have room for you and yours!