AimeeM Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 Maybe it isn't for everyone, but golly - I feel like I'm on serious overload lately. Between staging our house, and trying to walk a super fine line of *when* to list (since the house we have the contingency on isn't fully built yet, and houses in our neighborhood *tend* to sell quickly - even in the winter). Dh is, of course, helping on the weekends with the heavy stuff (we had to install the new light fixtures and take down old ceiling fans), but it's the little things that have me going nutso. Like, I didn't realize how many books we had stuffed on our shelves until now. I mean, I realized that we had a lot of books. We love books, but Holy Moly... I have four boxes of books that I had to take off the shelves (to make the shelves look more "clean" and organized - so there are still books ON the shelves as well). Hope Tony's back is feeling okay, because there is no way in hades I'm lugging these down to the basement. Nope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annie G Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 I always think I must be doing something wrong because buying and selling houses is super stressful to me. But my nieces and nephews seem to have some super special tricks that I never learned about. My nephew put his house on the market on a Saturday and by the end of the day he had accepted an offer, had a back up offer, and half of the 20 people who looked at it wanted to be contacted in case those two offers fell through. It was NOT a super special house. So fast forward to this week. They spent 2 days looking at houses and put in an offer and it was accepted within minutes. I want to smack him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amanda's Mommy Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 Ours has been on the market for 4 weeks now, our second showing is tomorrow. We are looking for a place in Vancouver, WA area, but we need land for the horses and what we are seeing is crap. I HATE this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lllll Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annie G Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 Not priced too low. It was just in a market that seems to have a housing shortage. Broomfield, Colorado. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 So far I've only experienced buying. I told DH I'm never moving until I die. The whole thing was ridiculous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TranquilMind Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 Was it priced too low? I always wondered that when our houses sold very fast. Especially the one that sold the first day. I think it was definitely priced too low. But the realtor saw it before we had painted and decluttered, and that's what we based the price on. It looked totally different after we got through doing everything. I don't know, but one around the corner sold in one day at a really high price, I thought, and I follow the market. It was beautifully renovated though. I mean Property Brothers-perfect. They flipped it in two months for 100K more than original selling price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imagine.more Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 Buying and selling homes is incredibly stressful! My parents used to flip homes that we lived in and it was never as big of a fuss but nowadays they still do it and they're so stressed out because the new mortgage requirements make it so that even a pre-approved, ideal buyer can end up getting caught up in red tape and paperwork, pushing the closing date a month late at best. Closing dates are now more like rough estimates and should never be counted on imo. And in our area houses sell for full price usually but they take 9-12 months to sell because the market is just slow, not many people looking. We're currently debating selling and moving to a bigger city but the prospect of selling our house and going through the mortgage process again has me really gun shy! Last time we ended up technically homeless for 2 weeks between our rental ending (and we had given ourselves an extra 45 days past the original closing date as a buffer!) and the actual closing on our new home. It was all stuff outside our control and nothing we or the seller did wrong, just silly last minute requirements for the house from the mortgage companies because of the new laws. And our house was new construction, I can't even imagine if we'd been buying an older home that might have chipped paint or something they could deny our loan for, sheesh! So yeah, you're not alone and it's not always been this way. And depending on your area it can be easier or harder to sell. It's always a bit of a guessing game getting the timing right between selling the old house and closing on the new one. The people I know who don't stress about it as much have family nearby they could stay with if they guessed wrong and extra cash so they wouldn't be in trouble if they needed to pay 2 mortgages for a month or two. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 I hope to never have to sell a home while I am living in it. Never. Somehow I will find a way to move out first. Well, maybe when I no longer have small children around. In the meantime the idea of trying to get and keeps home ready for showings sounds like one of the most stressful undertakings imaginable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomtoCandJ Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 Gah, dh and I have been thinking about buying a new home in 5 years or so to be closer to town. We own a mobile home right now but would most likely just revert it back to a rental (that's what it was when we bought it, we actually rented it for a few months to make sure it was what we wanted, but at that time we didn't have dd2 and wasn't really planning to have another one). I'm going back to school for nursing and will most likely work at the hospital or one of nursing homes in the same town that the girls' go to school and where most of their activities are at. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustEm Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 I have yet to go through the buying or selling of a house. I went from living with my parents to moving in with dh after we married in the house he bought while single. The thought of having to sell and buy is so stressful to me that I'm not even going to consider moving until im ready to buy the house I want to spend the rest of my life in. Even then, this house will likely be rented out instead of sold Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momacacia Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 We are having another baby and in addition to the inconvenience of not being able to declutter all the kiddie karp right now, we will likely have to sell and move in the next 3-4 years. I'm already anticipating the horror. :-/ If baby is same gender as big brother, there is hope we can stay, but it would be snug. :-/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 We sold our last house (took about two months) and were able to close on it the day before we closed on our new house. Luckily, we were able to stay in the old house until the following day or we would have had to... I don't know... have the movers load the truck and take it to storage for a day? We were so stressed the entire time, but it worked out. We did have to extend the closing date of the old house twice because the market was so crazy we could barely get a house... they were selling that quick in the area we moved to. Funny thing is, I got the house I wanted from the beginning that I didn't think we would be able to afford... turned out we could! We had made several offers on other houses that cost less (and were beat out each time even though we even offered the asking price). Then, I checked into this house and it was actually in our price range, so we immediately made an offer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jasperstone Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 We're trying to sell ours now and it is so stressful. I think selling is way more stressful than buying since you're constantly cleaning, waiting, obsessing over numbers, etc... The whole process stinks. I'm sorry you're dealing with it, too! Same here!!! And have open house inspection in an hour and a half! Having a cup of tea to recharge while posting this.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storygirl Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 Ugh. My house has been on the market since July. I'm tired of cleaning it for showings for people who don't buy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momacacia Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 I don't understand this while thing. Sure a house looks wonderful when it's all picked up and clean, but when house shopping can't we look beyond the bit of clutter, books on shelves, a jacket sitting out (reasonableness here) of a reasonably picked up home? Maybe not even with a perfectly cleaned shower or vacuumed floor, but otherwise you get the idea of the house? The buyers will have to clean it themselves too and sellers will take all their stuff out before they go. We need to train to look past the mess and see the house we're actually buying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardenmom5 Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 AimeeM, on 30 Jan 2015 - 10:53 AM, said:Maybe it isn't for everyone, but golly - I feel like I'm on serious overload lately. Between staging our house, and trying to walk a super fine line of *when* to list (since the house we have the contingency on isn't fully built yet, and houses in our neighborhood *tend* to sell quickly - even in the winter). if you have an eta for when the new house will be finished - you can have that in the listing as that will be when the buyer can take possession (with you paying rent to the buyer) after it has closed. when I was house shopping with dd - there was one house that had the buyer could take possession three months away. I have a friend who was moving across the country - just not until school was out. she rented her house from her buyer, and rented the new house they bought to the former owners. (who was broken hearted her dh got a job 1000 miles away and they had to move. she'd just finished making it her dream house.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jasperstone Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 Ugh. My house has been on the market since July. I'm tired of cleaning it for showings for people who don't buy. Same here...totally over it! We had a contract last April, and we signed one on another house, but then it all fell through! We took 7 months off to recover, and then relisted in Nov. If it doesn't sell soon, we will have to take it off the market again, or dramatically drop the price. .... grrrrr! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jasperstone Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 I don't understand this while thing. Sure a house looks wonderful when it's all picked up and clean, but when house shopping can't we look beyond the bit of clutter, books on shelves, a jacket sitting out (reasonableness here) of a reasonably picked up home? Maybe not even with a perfectly cleaned shower or vacuumed floor, but otherwise you get the idea of the house? The buyers will have to clean it themselves too and sellers will take all their stuff out before they go. We need to train to look past the mess and see the house we're actually buying. I think presentation is very important. My dh and I spend at least 2-4 hours cleaning, tidying and getting clutter out of the way. The other day I had to rush home when there was an unexpected inspection. It's soooo stressful and unsettling living like this. :'( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
busymotherof4 Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 We are working hard getting ours ready to sell. A bunch of areas were painted this week. We are sorting and packing away most of our stuff. Money is flowing out like water. A new roof, paint, fixing things required by the pest inspection ( all dry rot), and bathroom fixes. I hope this works out. We are aiming to list by March 1. We have been warned that 60-90 days on the market is expected. I have no clue how to keep the place clean enough Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blondeviolin Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 Ugh. I feel your pain. We did that mess about six months ago. Show ready with five kids 7 and under. It stunk! We reprinted, put stuff in storage, put up a new roof, made repairs on stupid non-issue things just to sell it. We'll be here for at least four years, but I'm not willing to do that again that quickly. Hopefully your house sells soon! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pawz4me Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 We'll probably be putting our house on the market in the next year or two, possibly even this spring. I dread it. It will be hard, even though our kids are older (less mess and clutter, more help) and we can easily make interim living arrangements if needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 I don't understand this while thing. Sure a house looks wonderful when it's all picked up and clean, but when house shopping can't we look beyond the bit of clutter, books on shelves, a jacket sitting out (reasonableness here) of a reasonably picked up home? Maybe not even with a perfectly cleaned shower or vacuumed floor, but otherwise you get the idea of the house? The buyers will have to clean it themselves too and sellers will take all their stuff out before they go. We need to train to look past the mess and see the house we're actually buying. I agree, but this probably pertains to homes in a certain price range. When we went looking it wasn't in that price range. The houses weren't perfectly presented. I didn't care. I wasn't buying someone else's taste in furniture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 We will be selling in a few months (probably late summer) and I dread it. Around late June I plan to get a LARGE storage unit and put about 3/4 of our stuff in it. It will be very stressful I am sure, esp. because I will have to take my dogs out for hours while it is shown. I have no idea how we will handle all of that as we are very busy and can't take the dogs with us all the time. This is the 4th house we will be selling in our marriage, but we have always moved BEFORE selling. I don't think we can do that this time. Dawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speedmom4 Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 This thread stresses me out just reading it!! We plan on staying in out home for the foreseeable future but if we ever sell I want to do it the way my neighbors did. They found their new home but it needed some updating. They were able to renovate the new home while living in their "old" house. Once the renovations were completely finished they moved into the new house. THEN, they listed their old house and it sold within two weeks. Of course they were financially able to carry two mortgages indefinitely. But the process seemed much less stressful than others I've seen. Good luck to you! Elise in NC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AimeeM Posted January 31, 2015 Author Share Posted January 31, 2015 if you have an eta for when the new house will be finished - you can have that in the listing as that will be when the buyer can take possession (with you paying rent to the buyer) after it has closed. when I was house shopping with dd - there was one house that had the buyer could take possession three months away. I have a friend who was moving across the country - just not until school was out. she rented her house from her buyer, and rented the new house they bought to the former owners. (who was broken hearted her dh got a job 1000 miles away and they had to move. she'd just finished making it her dream house.) I'm sure there is an eta, but the realtor made sure we knew that the eta was VERY "estimated"... weather here has been a bit odd and any inclement weather could put them behind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TravelingChris Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 Although I have owned three houses in my life and sold two, I only had to deal with staging once. That is because we put the other house on sale as soon as we had orders to return to the US but to a completely different state. That meant we sold it without any staging since it was an empty house. We were going to update and repair some things our realtor told us about but since the house sold in two days, we never did. I may be facing this dilemma myself in the next few years and I am not looking forward to it. I do know that I would make use of storage units like I did with that first house sale which was 20 years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prairiewindmomma Posted January 31, 2015 Share Posted January 31, 2015 Amen. We are still prepping and packing--down to the wire before listing--and I'm not sure I'm going to survive this with my sanity. Just cleaning out the garage this week has been so timeconsuming and stressful. I've literally put hundreds of hours into packing and painting and prepping. All of this "give yourself two weeks to pack" stuff makes me think that they must only own a tiny amount of stuff....like clothes, books, and a handful of toys aside from furniture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AimeeM Posted February 1, 2015 Author Share Posted February 1, 2015 I'm hoping I can work out a rate with our GSD's trainer - to have her take him for last minute showings. There is no way (no way!) that I can keep all kids, an Italian Greyhound, and a 70 lb German Shepherd puppy happy in the car for hours. We will be selling in a few months (probably late summer) and I dread it. Around late June I plan to get a LARGE storage unit and put about 3/4 of our stuff in it. It will be very stressful I am sure, esp. because I will have to take my dogs out for hours while it is shown. I have no idea how we will handle all of that as we are very busy and can't take the dogs with us all the time. This is the 4th house we will be selling in our marriage, but we have always moved BEFORE selling. I don't think we can do that this time. Dawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 You should have seen what it was like at the closing. There were about 10 people present. The lawyer for the seller, lawyer for the buyer, lawyer for the bank, Realtors, buyers, sellers, and assistants of some of those people. Some people buy more expensive cars than what our house cost, but you would have thought we were purchasing a small country. And really the final paperwork is everything we already filled out prior, but then we had to fill it out again. So stupid.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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