House Sold and We Are Outta Here!

[Tiger]

We will be selling our house at the end of next year when my wife retires. We have done a walk through and made notes of the things we think have to be done to prepare the house to look it's best. Our realtor came over and went through the house with us and we discussed what we felt had to be done to get the house ready to sell. She gave us some very helpful suggestions about things that didn't have to be done and others that could be done cheaper. The realtor also has a monthly e-zine that she send to us which shows what houses in our town are selling for with pictures and full descriptions of the houses so you can compare apples to apples. We have already started doing some of the work and will spread it out over the next year and a half so that we don't get hit with the expenses all at once.

 

[Urchina]

SteveR, that's great news! I think the excitement of a new home is one of the best of life's adventures.

Another park in your area worth checking out is Capitol Reef National Park. Capitol Reef National Park (U.S. National Park Service). Smaller, uncrowded, and stunning in a subdued way. I felt unfettered by crowds or rangers there. If you have access to a 4wd vehicle, you should do the Cathedral Valley tour there.

I agree with previous posters that a great way to see what works and doesn't work in open houses is to go to them. One of my current weekend pursuits is going to open houses in our neighborhood (usually with my kids, my 3-year-old LOVES other people's closets ). Favorite foibles in open houses to date are:

1. The couple that took a 4-bedroom, 3-bath family house in one of the area's best school districts, and remodeled it into a 2-bedroom, 2 bath "couples's" home with a GIANT show kitchen (no place to eat-in), a teensy-tiny dining room, a master bath that was at least 700 square feet, and a small second bedroom. When I mentioned to the Realtor that it was a shame they'd turned a great family home into a home not usable by families with children (and also, that they'd gotten rid of the dining room in favor of expanding the kitchen, but now there was no place to eat and so dinner parties were out of the question as well), she sighed and said "I wish they'd been able to hear it from someone other than me before they did it."

2. The current rental with 6 bedrooms, two of which could only be accessed by going through another bedroom (they were linked like a daisy chain -- to get to bedroom two, you had to go through bedroom one, and to get to bedroom three, you had to go through bedroom one AND bedroom two....)

3. The house that had rat poison prominently displayed in every room....

4. The illegal garage conversion where they sheetrocked right behind the overhead garage door, leaving ragged sheetrock and door in place, and where this was the BEST feature of the house.

5. The smell of "Glade" air-fresheners. Ugh. I don't like the way those smell, first of all, and second of all, what's making your house smell so bad that you have to pump perfume through it in order to live there? Dead rats dying behind the sheetrock? (See house #3 above).

 

[Jake46]

Want2Retire

Steve, congratulations on the quick sale of your home.

I was curious to know what sorts of things you did to the house to get it ready to sell. Do you mean repairs, or staging the house, or upgrades, or...?

Anyway, I think your situation is terrific and very likely could lead to the easiest move ever!

We sold our house last year on the day it was listed. Not sure what all the factors were (could have been underpriced but who knows). At any rate, I am a big fan of Roger on "Sell This House" on A&E. He has lots of great ideas about fixing up but really more staging ideas. Major de-cluttering is a key to successful house selling.

 

[W2R]

We sold our house last year on the day it was listed. Not sure what all the factors were (could have been underpriced but who knows). At any rate, I am a big fan of Roger on "Sell This House" on A&E. He has lots of great ideas about fixing up but really more staging ideas. Major de-cluttering is a key to successful house selling.

Thanks! I watch "Design to sell" on HGTV and they often mention clutter too, and using neutral colors. I am mostly concerned with the fact that (while comfy) some of my furniture is way too big for the room size and makes the house look smaller than it really is. It sounds like I could remove the overstuffed furniture and just leave the den empty (for example). My present house was beautifully "staged", with taste and elegance. I have to admit that really added to the appeal. However, it would be easier/cheaper to try to sell it with little to no furniture than to have it staged. I don't think I could stage it as nicely without help.

I made an offer on my present house within hours after it was listed, before it hit the public MLS listings online. My realtor had sent me the listing at 2 AM the night before. It wasn't underpriced; in fact, it was overpriced. But, it happened to be almost perfect for me (well, other than not having a garage! ). I paid $15K less than asking price and the sellers were not happy about it; I think they felt it was priced too low already. They let my offer expire and then came back a week later asking if I would still make that offer. My realtor and I had decided that it wasn't worth a penny more, and when I got the call I was out looking at other houses.

 

[Jake46]

Want2Retire

Roger always says you are selling square feet so he always removes oversize furniture to expose more of the floor space. We got rid of a lot of oversize furniture before we put the house up. It really made the rooms look larger and showed off the hard wood floors.

 

[Nords]

Favorite foibles in open houses to date are:

A couple years ago when Hawaii was in its go-go "any piece of crap will get multiple offers above list" phase, we opened a bedroom door at a crowded open house and found ourselves in a nursing home's geriatric ward.

Two very very old and emaciated people, a man and a woman, were in hospital beds with IV drips and oxygen feeds. Both were out cold (sleeping, I hope) and surrounded by life-support equipment. No one else was in the room. Total silence except for beeping electronics.

We traded glances, quietly closed the door, left the house, and spent at least 15 minutes in the car trying to calm down. I think that's the day spouse decided to purchase a 9mm LTC policy.

How the $%&^ do you make an offer under those circumstances?

 

[SteveR]

...
How the $%&^ do you make an offer under those circumstances?

You just do it. If it is for sale then the seller knows they will have to move out. Ma and Pa included.

Our LTC policy is a bit more subtle than yours. "Better dying through chemistry."

 

[ivinsfan]

Hello Steve R, your post has brought me out of the shadows, I have been reading here for 2 years but never posted. As you can tell from my user name....I love the Southern Utah area.

My DH and I farm in the mid-west and have been looking for a home in the ST G., Ivins area for about 2 years. What do you think of the current market conditions?...Because of workload (we have a dairy farm) we are very limited in the amount of time we can spend looking for houses. Our last trip was Feb of '08 and we found too many listings to look at, even in the small town of Ivins...

My entire family lives in SLC, so that is a big reason for househunting in that area.Congratulations on your move, I know you are settling in a fabulous area, Snow Canyon State park, is my favorite place, it's hard to believe it's 10 minutes from St George.

 

[SteveR]

Check your Personal Messages.

Welcome to the "other side" of the board. Nice to see you come out of the shadows and post.

Southern Utah is not for everyone. There are some huge differences between here and the midwest. Also the smaller town environment is not for everyone either.

Good luck in your search. There are a TON of houses for sale here at very good prices. I got mine $70k under appraisal and it is in perfect shape (just got our inspection back) and it was reduced already to track with the soft market here.