Real Estate Rollercoaster Ride

After about 50 plus home tours and 4 written contracts, we finally have a house in Bentonville! When we went back to Bentonville this past weekend, we narrowed down our search to our top three houses. Unfortunately, two of those three houses went under contract during the weekend while we were there! Our realtor was shocked that two houses sold within hours of each other when the market had been so slow there recently.

We made an offer on the only house left that we really liked (there weren't many houses in our price range with the size we were desiring), but we encountered some "hard ball" negotiating from their forceful agent. We wrote multiple offers and counter offers back and forth over price for four, long days! We finally walked away from the house on Tuesday after they returned the same counter offer back to us twice without any drop in price. However, after we walked way, the seller suddenly became much more willing to negotiate! They called our agent with a lower price the next day to see if we would reconsider. Thankfully (no pun intended!), we signed a contract this morning, right in time for the Thanksgiving holiday! The best part is that we got the house for the exact price that we had been praying for! God continues to lead so clearly!

We close on our house in Cabot on December 22, and we close on the Bentonville house on December 23. We plan to get the Cabot house completely packed the weekend after Christmas and have the movers load the truck on Monday, December 29. We will unload in Bentonville on Wednesday, December 31, after we take possession on December 30.

Please pray for us throughout the rest of the move. There are still inspections and appraisals that must be done, and we pray that everything goes smoothly through the two closings. We're very excited about the new house and think it will be a good fit for our family. Stuart moves to Bentonville this weekend to start his new job on Monday, December 1, and he'll be living in temporary housing for the month of December. Please pray for him as he is there for a few weeks by himself, and pray for me as I deal with the kids alone!