are things complicated yet?

The Great Big House Buying and Selling Story: Part 4

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

***

1/17/10

I've looked at every house for sale in our price range, in every city that might be acceptable to live in and...nothing.  UGH.  I'm getting frustrated.  I don't want to settle.

I thought I had found THE HOUSE but then we saw the Seller's Disclosure and it not only had major foundation issues that had yet to be repaired, but it was also suffering from a termite infestation.

I take Chris to the House We Eventually Buy for him to see.  It's my second time there.  Even though I have serious misgivings about the kitchen, I did like it and I want his thoughts.  He likes it all right but he's not in love.

The house we see immediately afterward catches our attention though and we get distracted.  We're really stupid and we looked at another house out of our price range because I was feeling desperate.  Of course, I fall deeply in love with this home.

I love the style of it, I love the neighborhood and I die when I see the sparkly pool and spa with tons of yard to spare.  What I don't love is the apples and pear wallpaper in the kitchen, the bathrooms with grody stained carpet and the odd 90's-era built-ins that seem to be around every corner.  The office is hunter green with golf wallpaper the dining room suffers from Laura Ashley-esque wallpaper vomit and...this house is stuck in 1990.  Maybe 1985.

Basically, I let myself fall in love with the front yard and back yard and talk myself into thinking that eventually I'll like the part in the middle where we'd have to live. 

I can tell from the write-up that these people think they have The Most Amazing House Ever. 

It's full of lines like, "blah-blah quality shows Pride."  And, yes, they did capitalize it like that.  They also included a photo of a "Yard of the Month" sign in their yard with the caption, "Pride in Ownership."  They seem very...full of pride.

So, it's sort of clear that they're snobby and they think apples and pears still look great in the kitchen on wallpaper.  They don't think that the built-in's designed for a monster TV from the 80's are a problem for today's buyer. 

We submit a low offer to House #3.  At this point I am totally grasping at straws, hoping I can find something I like for the price I want. I'm hoping that we'll hit on someone desperate to sell because of a divorce or a job transfer.

They come back with a figure not at all close to our number.  In fact, it's only $2,000 below list price, which is very telling; they're not interested in negotiating.  They really want list price.  They also send a paragraph of rationale that is full of oddly capitalized items, misspelled words and incomplete sentences.  It only serves to cement my opinion that most real estate agents are morons.  It reads, verbatim,

"...the owner's understand some things need to be updated but have taken that into account on pricing their home. The location of the nieghborhood is great, Pool and Landscaping and the Oversized Lot.

The wood and Hardyplank on the exterior of the home are in excellant shape because of Home Owner Maintenance.They just replaced their Hot Water Heaters in the last 45 days and have replaced fence and roof in the last 2 years.

(I'd like to point out that the roof part is no big deal, as a hail storm came through the area two years ago and EVERYONE got a free new roof from their homeowner's insurance, so I find it hilarious that they're touting this as a unique benefit.  Every home in TWO COUNTIES got a new roof.)

The home has been extremely well maintained as she is an emplyee for David Weekley Homes.

(Oh wait, HERE IT IS.  She's an employee and they're the original owners so they probably got a song for the house and they obvs didn't upgrade a damn thing. THANKS, I UNDERSTAND PERFECTLY NOW.) 

The activity on showings has been excellant also."

So, pretty clear they don't actually want to sell their house unless they can make gobs of cash.  (As of this writing, it's still for sale and not yet under contract, so clearly we weren't too off base in our evaluation.)

This is also where I get frustrated with people who are not serious sellers.  Usually it's not-serious buyers who get all the flak, but a seller who is just fishing is almost worse.  They make you think their house is for sale, but it's really not.

Adios, House #3 with the dreamy pool and terrible wallpaper.

1/19/10

We go back to the House We End Up Buying.  We like it.  But we're so goshdarn ambivalent for some reason.  We think it's because it doesn't have a pool and we really wanted a pool.  We like the rest of it....except I really dislike the kitchen.  It has the right things on paper (granite countertops, hardwood floors, lots of cabinets) but they're just not the style and color that I want and it's clear that it's been sort of a quick, DIY upgrade job on everything.  I feel like I'm paying for an "upgraded" kitchen that I just want to gut and start over on.  That hardly seems fair.

We discuss this a lot.  Chris thinks the kitchen is nice.  I think it sucks.  Back and forth we go.  Over and over and over again.

In retrospect, and now that I live here, this kitchen IS nice.  Chris is right.  But compared to all of the crazy amazing kitchens I had been looking at, that maybe had OTHER problems in the house that made them un-buyable, this kitchen isn't as nice. 

I lose sight of the goal - WHOLE PACKAGE.  I can't pick and choose rooms from a bunch of houses and put them together.  I like this house, this is the kitchen it has, can I live with it?  Can I fix the things I don't like?  Am I willing to PAY for that later, but live with it for now?  Is this the best thing available, in our price range, in a place we are willing to live?

After a lot of thought we decide that yes, yes we can and yes it is, YES YES YES and let's draw up an offer so we don't have to find House #5.  Plus, we hear that the agent is expecting another offer today and there's nothing like feeling you're about to lose a house you've spent 2 months looking for to light a fire under your ass.  (She probably made the whole thing up.)

This house is really awesome and it's in our price range.  We submit an offer.  They accept it that night. 

We breathe a sigh of relief because we think we just bought our new house.  WE WILL NOT BE HOMELESS.

The Great Big House Buying and Selling Story: Part 3

1/10/10

Now that we're starting over again, we take a fresh look.  We look at cities we didn't initially consider.  We look smaller and larger than we thought we wanted.  We look at homes even MORE in the sticks (if that is even possible), townhouses in the city, condos downtown and fixer-uppers in terrible neighborhoods that are turning into hipster scenes.

We think about moving to Austin.  Or maybe DC or Napa or Iowa or Chicago or any one of a hundred places.  (We do not think about moving to Houston because, well, just no. Never.)  Since the door is wide open to any possibility we can imagine, we let our imaginations run BERZERK.

Eventually we get back to reality and realize that OH YES, our jobs are here and we'd rather not get new ones and wow it would be stupid to move out of state because I hear that if you do?  You have to pay something called "State Income Tax" and, well, no thanks on that one.

We drive by some homes that they're building down the street from our current house.  You know, in the part of town we dislike because it's the sticks and the grocery store is 8 miles away?  We walk through a model home and we fall in love just like they want you to with model homes.

This model home is clean, new, well decorated, sparse and devoid of all of the clutter, grime and dust that nearly every other home I've looked at has.  No doilies.  No angel collections.  No half used Suave bottles in the shower.  It's refreshingly stark and devoid of anything personal.  (Because nobody actually LIVES there.)  It's easy to imagine living in this model home.

The option to customize and pick colors and fixtures is immensely appealing.  All of our problems will be solved!

Except, this house wouldn't be ready until the summer.  They can't guarantee we'll get the tax credit which is kind of the entire point of the exercise.  They also refuse to tell me what the stupid house will even COST.  They want me to sign a contract to buy it and THEN they will tell me what it costs.  Plus, this house isn't in the part of town we want to live in.  It's still in the sticks!  This is a stupid idea!

After a couple of days, we figure that out.  It's going to take too long and everyone we talk to with the builder seems to be a moron or playing one really well.  We don't trust them.  We want to move soon and stop living life in transition.  No building a house.

1/12/10

The offer we got on 1/6 has been negotiated out and we're under contract.  Our close date is 2/24.  We are starting to feel panicky that WE HAVE NO PLACE TO LIVE AFTER 2/24 ZOMG MUST FIND A HOUSE NOOOOOOOWWWWWW.  PANIC PANIC PANIC.

I start to spend 3+ hours a day at Realtor.com, looking at the same homes over and over again, trying to find Our New House somewhere in the same set that I've already looked at and rejected.

1/14/10

We go look at a house that's out of our price range.  Not a lot out of range, but definitely too expensive.  This house is in the same neighborhood as House #1 and it has the exact same floor plan as House #1.

The kitchen has been updated and it has a better pool.  It's on a cul-de-sac on a larger lot.  It also backs up to a cemetery, but this doesn't really bother us even though it's definitely weird.

We hem and haw.  Is it worth submitting a lowish offer?  The thing we loved about House #1 was the floor plan; it was the finish out that bothered us.  This one is much nicer AND it has a way better lot  Hmmm. 

We submit a crazy low offer to too-expensive House #2.  We cross our fingers, but we're pretty sure they're going to laugh at us.  But, you never know until you ask.  (Plus, it's free to ask.)

That night, we get the Seller's Disclosure on House #2.  It has had foundation repairs.  We're so annoyed; this house isn't worth close to list price if it's got foundation issues (even if they HAVE been resolved for the time being) AND there's the weird cemetery thing going on.

The agent and sellers try to talk us around on the foundation being a non-problem ("Trust us!  It's no big deal!") but we've already moved on.  They counter really close to our lowball offer in a last ditch effort to reel us in.

No thanks.  No more houses with "issues."

1/15/10

It's a good day.  We get a BACK UP OFFER from someone who wants to buy our house.  Yes!  There's another couple that loves our house so much, they want to be first in line if the current buyers back out!  YES, PLEASE!  WHERE DO I SIGN?

Their offer is even a little BETTER than the first one, so we are feeling pretty awesome.  It also gives us a lot of leverage to refuse to make repairs.  Not only did we sell our house, we sold this sucker TWICE. 

Gosh, we're good at this.  

1/16/10

Our house is inspected and the report comes back clean because Chris is really good at taking care of basic housey type stuff.

They only ask for three things:

• A window in the breakfast room with a broken seal to be replaced.

• GFCI outlet in the kitchen to be replaced.

• Trim the hedges in the front yard away from the house to discourage termites.

We're sort of annoyed with the hedge request but we agree to all of them.  This is a ten-year-old house and it has ten-year-old problems.  We're glad that they seem to accept that fact.

After we agree to their repairs, they voluntarily end the option period.  That's it.  Our house is pretty much sold.  Now we just have to pack and be ready to take their money on the 24th.

OH, AND WE HAVE TO FIND SOMEWHERE ELSE TO LIVE.  GETTING EXTRA PANICKY NOW. 

The Great Big House Buying and Selling Story: Part 2

12/23/09

After we see all the mold in House #1 we have to figure out what to do next.  Chris says we can replace the upstairs HVAC and it needs to be replaced anyway since it's old, so he's fine with it. 

I've been in the house 5 times and I still can't decide if I LOVE it.  Chris loves it.  I like it, but I'm scared of remodeling the kitchen and the cost and the yard is sort of smallish even though it does have a pool.  I want to love it.  I have an overwhelming need to love it since checks have been written and papers signed.

But now it's Christmas, so we decide to put all the house crap in a drawer and forget about it until Monday, the last day we can terminate our contract and get all of our earnest money back.

12/28/09

We have to make a decision today.  I have been stalking real estate sites over the weekend to see if anything new pops up.  Of course, since it's Christmas NOTHING NEW POPS UP. 

We bite the bullet and decide to stick with House #1.  But, I act in direct conflict with this decision and keep looking at other houses in the meantime, just to make sure we don't see something better.  You know, just in case our house doesn't sell in time to buy House #1. 

1/6/10

Today I look at 6 houses and one of them is actually The House We Buy In The End but I don't know yet that this is the house we're going to buy.  I like it the first time; I write down that it's "cozy."  I don't like the kitchen though.  It keeps it firmly in the "maybe" category.

At 10 am, we get a second offer on our house.  This is exciting because to buy House #1 we have to sell our house by the end of January and things are getting tight time-wise.

The offer is pretty good - it's more than the list price, but they want closing costs which pulls the actual offer to a little below list.  This is fine by us, expected even.  We're hesitantly celebrating.  We think we just sold our house!  Open the champagne!

That night at 5p, my agent calls me.  The owners of House #1, the house we have already had SO MUCH DRAMA over, have received another offer that does not have a contingency sale on it and they are exercising their right to kick us out of our contract and let the new people buy their house. 

What the hell does this mean?  Basically, we just got screwed.  Put the champagne back in the fridge.

• We have about 24 hours to decide if we want to buy House #1, WITHOUT the safety that the contingency clause provides us.  We have to cough up more earnest money if we want to do this, thereby increasing potential money lost if it doesn't work out. 

• If we get to our close date on House #1 and our house isn't sold and we don't have the money from it and we CAN'T buy House #1 because of that, then we will lose ALL of our earnest money.  Nonrefundable.  Buh-bye many thousands of dollars.

• But!  We just got a good offer on our house today!  So, there's an EXCELLENT chance that we'll have the money long before the deadline and the whole thing is moot!

• But!  What if these sellers are flakey?  What if they find something catastrophic at inspection?  What if they can't get their financing in order?  What if they just change their minds?  Then we'll be SCREWED and lose all our earnest money.  These are things we have no control over.

We decide that the level of risk is too high and there are too many things we can't control; we say goodbye to House #1.

Immediately afterward, I feel this enormous sense of RELIEF.  It is a feeling exactly like what I imagine being released from jail must feel like.  I feel HAPPY and EXCITED that we don't have to buy this house and we don't have to remodel the kitchen from 1990 and I can finally stop worrying about THE MOLD THE MOLD THE MOLD.  (Which I never really let go.) 

It's only at this point do I realize the depth of my indecision and doubt about House #1. 

I start to see the kick-out scenario as a huge blessing.  We got out of buying House #1 and we got all our money back, less the two inspections. 

We got lucky.

The Great Big House Buying and Selling Story: Part 1

11/12/09

We've been thinking about buying a new house for a little while, but the newly announced tax credit for second time home buyers pushes over the edge. 

What can I say?  We are suckers for free money, especially with a Democrat in charge who is just going to take it back later.  Sure!  We'll take your free money President Obama!  We'll consider it a temporary loan since we're pretty sure you'll raise our taxes more than enough to demand it all back next year.

Today we go see a house where we meet the agent who will eventually sell us our home.  We like this house a lot, we even discuss putting an offer in on it, but there's one problem.  Our current home is not on the market yet and we need to sell it before we buy a new one.

We go home and gape at the photos of the Potential House.  We imagine ourselves living there and spend the next few days torturing ourselves. 

11/16/09

An agent named Dana comes to our house to convince us to list our home with her brokerage.  She has a PowerPoint presentation and uses fancy words like "Twitter" and "Social Media."  I am not impressed and I think I'm probably smarter than she is.  (No offense to Dana, but, uh, it's the truth.) 

They want the standard 6% commission.  Thus begins a week long intellectual exercise wherein we discuss whether the Real Estate Commission Model is Fair? Equitable? Motivating to Whom?  And what do we get for 6%?  Is it worth it?  Should we sell it ourselves?

WE DON'T KNOW. 

We talk in circles, constantly, for a week.  We get riled up and egg each other on.  We can't decide what to do.  My stomach hurts when I think about it at night - this question of whether selling our house is worth many thousands of dollars.  We can think of a lot of things to buy with that money.

11/23/09

In the end, we decide to hire Dana after I have an email fight with her boss about commission and rates and what's fair and how he should Earn My Business Dammit.  She seems moderately smart but mostly we hire her because their listings have the best pictures. 

She also works with our buyer's agent who is showing us houses.  They'll give us 1% back when we buy our new house from them, dropping total fee to 5%. 

We still feel ripped off, in a major way, but we figure this is just how the industry is and even though we don't want to play along and perpetuate what we think is a crap business model, we do anyway because we are busy people and we really do want to move.

Harrumph.

I spend a great deal of time over the next two days fretting about whether the towels look fluffy enough on their hooks in the bathroom and lots of other stupid things.  We take carloads of extra furniture, photos and anything personal, to the hangar to store until the house sells.  I replace all of the pictures of people with photos of flowers.  I buy some gerbera daisies.  We drink a bottle of wine.

Over the next few weeks Dana does exactly nothing to help sell our house.  We knew what we were going to price the house at, we did all the "staging" unassisted and I do a lot of buyer feedback follow ups.  It appears that she sent the photographer, stuck a sign in the yard and filled in some forms to put it on MLS.  After that, nothing. 

Yep, Dana is worth just about as much as we suspected in the first place.

11/25/09

A man called Stuart shows up and takes photos of the house.  He has a tripod and a wide angle lens and he takes these 30-second exposures that seem to last forever.  He is in and out in 30 minutes.  I'm pretty pleased with the photos.

Looking back, I think this, more than anything else, is the key part of selling a home these days.  If you have a decent house, getting AWESOME pictures is really key to generating traffic.  I think next time I might list the house myself and handle the contracts on my own, but I will DEFINITELY hire a professional photog for a couple hundred bucks.

Here's our old living room.  It was a big room with not a lot of furniture (really, it was designed to be a dining room/living room but we just used it as a living room), but the wide angle lens really stretched the thing out.  You can tell that it's distorted when you look at the TV; it's too long for its height.  With my point and shoot I could only capture about a third of this space in one shot.  Putting it all in one frame really helps tell the visual story.

Here's the same room from the opposite direction.  Look at how weirdly shaped the front door is.  Distortion Alert!

Here's our old kitchen.  I painted it myself, and in person you can totally tell that I did, but the long exposure makes everything sort of hazy, so you can't tell here.  You also can't see that the linoleum is nicked up and separating a bit at the seams and badly in need of replacement. Photo Magic!

And now, from the opposite direction.  Are you starting to see what I'm saying about the professional photog?  Dude knows how to stretch a room and make it shiny/blurry so it looks way classier than it actually is.

Check out the dishwasher - the dimensions aren't right because his lens makes everything wider.  Cool trick, huh?  Now when you look at house pictures you will totally be able to tell who walked in with a point and shoot and who had a tripod and good lens.

I liked my home a lot and it was clean, organized and decently decorated (if I do say so myself), but it was definitely not considered "high end."  We long ago stopped investing in it because we knew we'd never get the money back when we sold.  It was not finished out with top-of-the-line anything.  It was a first home and was finished out to match. 

We priced it accordingly and hoped for the best.

11/26/09

Our house is for sale!  OMFG!  We are out of town for Thanksgiving and are encouraged when an agent calls to show the house that morning.  We were warned that putting our house on the market right before the holidays might be a bad idea - people don't want to move at Christmas.

But we reason that a lot of people will probably list their homes for sale after the New Year and the market will get crowded, fast.  We'd like to sell when there are fewer homes for sale in our neighborhood to choose from so that our house shines and looks like the best bargain to potential buyers.

12/4/09

Today we find House #1 that we try to buy.  House #1 has a pool and spa.  It also needs a complete kitchen remodel because it's stuck in the early 90's, but this sort of project appeals to me a bit.  It's a big house in a great location.

Its been on the market for one day and we decide to come back tomorrow and see it again, just to be sure.  We like it the second day and we make an offer.

12/10/09

Ever since putting the house on the market, we've seen a steady stream of people come look at it.  We're getting good feedback through the showing service, even though it seems like a lot of people aren't quite ready to buy yet.

Buyers liked the large living areas and open kitchen. Covered patio is nice. Would prefer a little larger garage. Just started looking and must sell their home before making any purchase decisions.

Clients loved this house. They wished that the bedrooms were larger. They have a contract on a short sale and like that one best. They are going to wait on the short sale. This is a nice house.

Buyers did like the home. The only concerns they had were the size of the secondary bedrooms. They need to get things in order with their finances so it may be a while before they can move forward on anything.

Buyers loved the curb appeal...the backyard was large and covered patio was a plus.

We feel good that we'll be able to sell our house quickly after the holidays.  We think this is going swimmingly.

12/14/09

We're finally under contract (with a contingency to sell our current home, of course) with House #1.  It took a long time to negotiate and, in retrospect, this should have been telling.  

The house is priced well below market (we think because of the horrible kitchen) and we offered 5% below list price.  They counter with 4% below list price.  We think this is pretty good and get excited about our "bargain."

And then we get the Seller's Disclosure.

(Cue scary music.)

On page 3 there's a vague reference to a shower leak and, oh yes, MOLD REMEDIATION.  There are no attached invoices.

This spools me up in a hurry.  I immediately suspect that they are hiding something and my suspicions are raised even more when my agent tells me that they were very insistent that we include language in the contract about the home being sold "as is."  "AS IS" was a huge fight between our agent and theirs.

I start to think that this house is damaged and perhaps even dangerous.  Maybe THIS is the reason it's priced below market and NOT the ugly kitchen.  I begin to wonder if this is really a bargain after all.

I turn to Google, the place we all go to get spooled up EVEN MORE when we are scared.

Google is pretty helpful.  In the State of Texas any mold remediation work should be issued a certificate by the state that basically says, "It's all cool now.  Everything is fixed."  I ask them to produce the Certificate and it takes several days.

Primarily, I lack context to evaluate the disclosure properly.  Was this a slow leak over many years and the entire bathroom was covered in furry mold?  Or was it a burst pipe where everything was replaced as a precautionary measure?  Either way, I'm pretty sure that it's safe, but I worry about resale in the future.

In a buyer's market, why bother messing with a house with an asterisk when there are plenty of homes for sale without?

12/16/09

While they're looking for the Certificate of Mold Remediation issued by the state, we go ahead and perform the inspection because we're in our option period and we figure we need to find out if there's anything else wacky going on.  Because really, we love this house.  We love the location.  We love the pool.  We love the price.  We're optimistic that the mold thing will resolve itself once the Certificate is produced.

The inspection comes back relatively clean.  There are 3 or 4 safety related items and the dishwasher is broken.  They agree to our requested repairs.

But, I've had a few more days to research mold and I'm completely freaked out. No, that's an understatement.  I am outright panicked and having major doubts by now.

I wonder if we should perform an environmental inspection.  We get the invoices from the Seller's Disclosure and they are...complex.  It looks like a major job was done.  I am overcome with stress and worry that this house is a terrible investment and WE won't be able to sell it and maybe we are really stupid buyers for wanting it in the first place and that's why they sold it for so little.  THE MOLD, THE MOLD, THE TERRIBLE MOLD!

They produce the certificate but by now I'm so far gone to crazy town it doesn't matter.  I need an environmental inspection to feel good about buying this home. 

12/19/09

They finally deliver the Mold Certificate on Day 6 of our 7-day option period.  I am highly annoyed and it does nothing to alleviate my case of the Mold Crazies.

12/21/09

We get an offer on our house today from a dude who left the following feedback:

Wasn't what my buyers are looking for and didn't like the street.

WELL.  That was kind of him.  Seems he really likes the house, huh? 

His offer is ridiculously low.  Laughably low.  It also includes $6,000 for closing costs on top of the stupid-low sale price.  We are excited (Woo, an offer!  Someone likes our house!), but also realistic.  This dude wants a crazy-bargain and we're not going to give him one. 

We counter with something closer to reality and he immediately withdraws his offer completely. 

12/22/09

We perform an Environmental Inspection today at House #1.  We have extended the option period a week to cover this.

The inspector is a nice girl about my age, who went to Texas A&M and has a degree in bio medical macro chemistry something or other. She goes through the house with a moisture meter and shines her flashlight into the HVAC vents.

And that's where we find....MOLD!

It's ALL OVER the upstairs HVAC and it's visible in several rooms.  I feel incredibly validated.  I'm not crazy!  This home has mold issues.

Then again, there's mold everywhere in the world, right?  She says that it's not toxic and it's more the sort of thing that could give you allergies.  Maybe. It's not really a big deal.  Just replace the HVAC and you're golden.  The house isn't a death trap.

But still.  MOLD.  I WAS RIGHT.  (Incidentally, the bathroom that had all the actual remediation comes back clean.)

***

Okay, Part 2 to come later this week.  This is a way longer story than I thought it was going to be.  And I think I'm only 1/3 of the way through it.

I'm not sure I can take Agony the Third, Fourth or Fifth.

Well guys, there is a sign in my yard and the house is officially for sale.

It's been spruced up, tidied up and, well, I think it looks great. Really, I do.  The toys are put away, there's a very attractive bowl of fruit on the table and for the twelve seconds each day that the house is "ready" I feel rested, relaxed and like this is all going to work out in a jiffy.  I think ridiculous thoughts like, "I'll have my fancy-ass First World linen closet by Christmas!"

Then Claire dumps a box of Cheerios on the floor or we decide we'd like to use our kitchen to prepare an actual meal.  Or maybe someone has the gall to want to change clothes and create actual dirty laundry.  That's all it takes for me to lose my shit.

Yep, just a few simple acts over a span of moments will elevate my heart rate and make me drop what I'm doing to CLEAN UP OMG CLEAN UP ASAP!

I start to stress that someone will call and want to show the house in a half hour and it won't be "ready."

What if someone calls when I'm in the shower?  And maybe I'm taking a long and leisurely shower (you know, the kind I haven't taken since BEFORE I had a baby), WHAT THEN?!?!  Yesterday, I took my iPhone INTO THE SHOWER with me just in case someone called while I was shaving my legs.  That is when the full-on Batshit Crazy of what we've signed up for hit me.

OMG WE CANNOT EAT, PLAY OR GET DRESSED HERE ANY MORE.  Chris, we are moving to the Marriott for the duration of this exercise.  And we're going to the nice one that I like downtown.  Not the crappy one by the racetrack. 

We're really doing this aren't we?  We are going to sell this house and buy a different one with a linen closet and I will finally have a place to put my towels and sheets in proper and orderly First World, spoiled American fashion. 

Then I will have a cigarette and a vodka gimlet, because I have morphed into Betty Draper since I'm actually daydreaming about a place to store folded towels, sheets and table cloths.

It better be one hell of a linen closet.

Agony the First: Making the house look like a toddler doesn't live here

We didn't do anything dramatic really.  We took down every single photo and/or personal item and every surface in the house is bare except for a few lamps.  I replaced the happy family photos on the wall with flower shots I took at the Botanic Gardens. 

I painted all the places on the wall that have been blessed by Claire.  In the process, I discovered that the walls have faded over ten years and the "matched" paint doesn't really match.  I figured this out the next day after I had spot painted THE ENTIRE HOUSE.  Oops.

I also took about half of the contents of our closet to storage and 5 other SUV-loads of random miscellany that we can't seem to life without.  I boxed it up and Chris did the heavy lifting over 5 or 6 nights.  I scrubbed a bit here and there, went over almost every surface in the house with a box of magic erasers, had Chris do a serious mow/edge and called it done.  

I have to say, the efforts of a week of hurried activity have produced noticeable results.  The closets look bigger and so do the rooms.  (It has affirmed my notion that we absolutely, positively do not need any more material things in our life.)  I think the house will show well.

We don't have any doilies, wallpaper from the 80's, hideous paint jobs, collections of angels/crosses, or other eyesores that might be called "Shabby Chic," Country Chic," or "Early 90's navy/burgundy/hunter green thematics." In other words, we are normal and pretty current/contemporary.

(Compared to some of the houses I've been looking at in our neighborhood, HOO BOY could we ever win a contest at Normal.)

Even though it was a lot of work to cram into a week of evenings after bedtime, the crap thing is that the worst is ahead of us.  KEEPING it looking like this is impossible.  IMPOSSIBLE!  I spent 20 minutes running around before I left this morning to get the house perfect, and then nobody even came by to visit today.  I was kind of pissed!

How do people put up with this for months and months?  I have my heart set on a quick sell.  If this takes more than a month?  I might have Magic Eraser'd my brain away by then.

Agony the Second:  Hire a Realtor or Sell it Ourselves?

I really spent too much time thinking about this. I was in pains over the topic for about two weeks.  It occupied my thoughts constantly. 

As a basic concept, I have such a huge problem paying a percentage of sale price to an agent.  It's too big of a moving target for a flat quantity of labor.  If the house sells for $10 or $15 there's still the same amount of basic work involved.  I'm not so sure that a $10 house takes more time to sell than a $15 house.  It should cost what it costs.  It's a service: I want to be provided with a firm estimate and it's frustrating that I can't get one.

(Obvs I am making up some figures here in the interest of simplicity.  We are not selling the house for ten dollars.  PHEW.)

I would much rather pay for someone's time on an hourly basis (even at a high rate).  I feel like I know exactly what I'm paying for that way and if feels like a much more equitable compensation model.  It's transparent.

On the other hand, selling it ourselves sounds like a huge pain in the ass.  There's research to be done, photos to take, upload and maintain and showings and follow ups and blah blah blah.  I can't seem to find time to upload my photos to Flickr so I don't know where I thought I was going to invent the time for this.  I have to be a good employee, mother and wife every single day without fail.  I cannot be a Real Estate Agent in my non-existent spare time. 

Waffling back in the other direction, we could save a truckload of money.  That would be very, you know, uppity of us, right?  To tell the Real Estate Establishment what we think of their System and Policies and Customs?  We don't agree with it so we just won't play that game.  Nanny-nanny-boo-boo! We're keeping our 6% and you can just shut up about it!

Right?  Right???

In the end, I wasn't sure what to do.  Chris told me that he knew I could sell it, but he didn't think I had the time.  He was just as spooled up about the concept as I was and we kept feeding off of each other's ire.

We hired a realtor.  We had a moment of clarity where it occurred to us that we'd spent the better part of almost TWO WEEKS endlessly debating the topic back and forth with no conclusion.  We'd already spent more time thinking about it than it was actually worth in hard dollars. 

I made the call, we signed some contracts and a photographer and sign showed up that same day.  Ta da.  House for sale.

So far, I think we made the right decision.  Their pictures are light years better than mine.  They sent a dude over here with a wide angle lens and he shot for like forty-five minutes. 

For example, here is MY picture of the kitchen taken with a point and shoot, crappy lighting, no special tweaking, just the "green means go" function:

And here is THEIR picture of the kitchen, with proper lighting, wide angle lens and slow exposure that makes it look more shiny and polished than it actually is:

 

Dudes, it doesn't even look like the same freaking room.  This is a shinier, more classy room than my kitchen.  Usually those counters are covered with sippy cups, keys, purses, Tupperware and anything else I've dragged in from the car.  That wide angle lens streeeeetches everything out and makes it look bigger.  The countertops are NOT that spacious.  For those of you who have been to my house before?  You know that my house DOES NOT LOOK THIS SHINY.

So, high hopes, crossed fingers, rubbing Buddha's belly...I hope this turns out to be a very good idea and not a terrible one.  WE SHALL SEE.

***

I feel the need to write some sort of standard disclaimer here, like yes, we really are aware of how privileged and lucky we are to be in the position of owning a home, with the option to sell it and buy a new one closer to town that has more space.  We are very thankful for the good things in our life, no matter how angsty or annoyed I may make this adventure sound.