Those that have been reading a while might remember to this past Mother's Day when Eddie got me a lot in an awesome new neighborhood for us to build a house. We (he) decided we should be reasonable and wait until our house sold. We (he) also decided to try to sell our house For Sale By Owner for a while.
We had a good amount of showings for FSBO, but it just wasn't selling. Well, the awesome neighborhood is a HOT neighborhood, and they realized that they could raise their prices and people would still want to move there (even in a crap economy, go figure!). Once they raised their prices, we were basically out. Their lot prices went up, and so did the floor plans from which to choose. We would have brought new meaning to the phrase House Poor!
So, then I get pregnant, and I am sick of thinking of where this little bambino is going to go in this house-- as I have said before, the layout just won't work with another baby and we are flat out of space! I contacted an AMAZING Realtor who had been referred to me by another friend and she is outstanding. It's a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law team and they are really hard working women. They have a lot of connections with doctors at Duke in the residency program, so we are hoping when the new doctors come in (late February/early March) they will show them our house!
One afternoon, Cal was in mega destruct mode where he just wanted to throw everything in sight, so I loaded him in the car and we went for a drive. I decided to drive through a little neighborhood that I've always thought was really cute and right away, I saw a For Sale By Owner sign in the front yard of a very cute house. I grabbed a flier and, are you ready for this?? It was BELOW our budget. And it was bigger than the house in pricey neighborhood, had a larger lot than that n'hood, AND, it was almost $100,000 LESS!!! I thought it had to be too good to be true. There was a website with pictures to view so I went home and looked up the pictures. It was adorable...that got me motivated even more!
The wonder team had a Stager come out to our house to walk through room by room to discuss things that needed to be done in order to get it sold. The stager came up with a packet of "suggestions" for us to complete-- our packet was 15 pages....! Some of the things were pretty common sense (clean out closets to make them look bigger), and other things were things we never would have done on our own without someone telling us to (get rid of our living room furniture and rent furniture in there to make the room look bigger). The leather on our couch is VERY worn and it has not worn very well. The leather is peeling off so it looks very cheap and unattractive (unfortunately!). We also have some large pieces in there, so we are going to store those to show off the maximum amount of square footage.
Soooo.... in the mean time, we had our Realtors show us the house that was FSBO and it was even cuter in person than in the pictures. The pictures do not do it justice at all! It has great crown molding, the hardwood floors are immaculate and the back yard is HUGE! There are some things that will need updating: the carpeting needs to be redone, it could use a fresh coat of paint (although every room is white except the dining room-- the walls just need a little refreshing!), and there is not granite in the kitchen....but those are all minor minor things, if you ask me! The layout is perfect, with a guestroom downstairs, and the other rooms upstairs. There is also a HUGE playroom and a walk up attic that is beyond huge. I gasped when I walked up there. It's that big. All I could think about was all of my crap that needs to be stored!
Okay, so we are in love with this house. But, we still have to get ours sold first! Our goal is to have it on the market by Feb.1st. That way it will reset on MLS at 0 days on the market and we will hopefully have all of our stuff on the list completed. I had a painter come out yesterday to do some touch up work and paint a bathroom (it was a crazy red color done in a HIGH sheen-- not picked by us!), and now it's a light khaki color-- it looks great! We also are renting a POD storage bin and we are packing things like crazy. If we aren't going to need it in the next 3 months, it is going in storage. I have cleaned out every closet, taken out the majority of the items in our kitchen cabinets (the open glassed ones), and removed every picture of us from the house! The stager said having personal pictures around makes the people forget to focus on the house, but instead on the pictures of the "cute baby" or the "fun wedding" etc. I can understand that, I guess... I always walk into people's houses and look at the pictures! I am a picture person--haha
The stager will come back hopefully this week to move around some furniture and bring in some rental stuff. She thinks we should replace our Pottery Barn rug with a very neutral rug that will make people look up at the lines on the ceiling instead of at the rug. Makes sense...right?? Our realtors are suggesting we do whatever the stager tells us to. They said she is amazing at getting houses sold quickly. Let's hope so!
This process is SO SO complicated, but if we can move (and quickly!), it will all be worth it. We don't have the POD yet, but I have about 25 boxes stacked in the living room right now waiting to be loaded. We have several large pieces of furniture that will be loaded in there as well. Could be interesting to do all of this pregnant, right? Oh, and doing all of this with Cal "helping" has been beyond difficult. Did I mention that I am sick too? Yeah-- killer cold. Can't stop coughing.
It's a long post, and if you've read this far, I am impressed! Wish us luck....my fingers are crossed everything works out. I think we are going to put a contingent offer on the other house. It's really perfect for us!
Ahhhhh.......I'll keep you posted!
