We are now 26 days into the process of trying to sell our house. It hasn’t sold yet, so maybe we don’t know much of anything ;) But I think we’ve learned a thing or two in the last few weeks, so I thought I’d share:
- Selling your house is exhausting. People warned us before our house actually went on the market, but it’s true. I have done more cleaning in the last month than I’ve probably done in the last year. Just the process of putting toys away and cleaning up after the girls eat breakfast or lunch takes a couple of hours sometimes. Throw in setting out freshly folded towels, hiding all the stuff you don’t want buyers to see, sweeping, vacuuming, making beds, cleaning counters and toilets, and getting the girls ready to leave the house during a showing, and that can easily take an entire afternoon. Momma is tired :)
- The washer and dryer make a great hiding place during showings. I’m pretty sure buyers don’t look inside the washer and dryer when they come to our house…I know I’ve never peeked inside someone else’s at a showing. So, they make the perfect hiding place for wet cleaning rags, stained clothes that are soaking, used bath towels, mail, packages, etc. It’s been a wonderful discovery! We always have things hiding in the washer and dryer during a showing ;)
- When all else fails, throw it in the laundry basket and take it with you. I think someone shared this tip on Pinterest or Facebook…can’t remember where exactly. But it is genius! We always take a laundry basket with us in the car when we leave for a showing. It is usually holding library books, my coupon binder, the girls’ handouts from Bible class, etc.—a.ka. all the things that normally live on our kitchen counters and don’t have a permanent home. We don’t have a ton of extra room in the car, but we always make room for that laundry basket!
- Don’t bother making freshly baked cookies. Another tip I read was to make a batch of cookies before a showing. It makes the kitchen smell nice, and it adds a welcoming touch to your house. Well….I can count on one hand the number of times my cookies have gotten eaten. Granted, I’m not making the cookies from scratch; I bought refrigerated cookie dough at the grocery store. But, still! Maybe it makes people feel weird to eat our food since they don’t know us personally? Who knows. But I also usually put out mini bottles of water on the counter, and more often than not, buyers don’t take those either. I will still continue to put out the water, but I think I’m pretty much done with making cookies. I’ll just light a candle instead :)
- When it’s not raining and there’s an opportunity, cut the grass! We got burned a few weeks ago when we decided that it wasn’t worth it for Travis to cut the grass on a Tuesday night after work. It didn’t really need to be cut yet, but it had been a few days since he had cut it last. We decided that it could wait until Thursday or Friday, and then the forecast changed. And it rained for the next 3 days straight. We ended up having a showing that Saturday morning at 9 AM, so Travis had to get up at the break of dawn (literally!) and cut the grass before the showing.
- Be ready at all times for a buyer to come. It was Savannah’s birthday—on a Saturday—around 6 PM. We were having a low key celebration by eating pizza in the living room and watching a movie together as a family. We were just about to eat brownies and sing happy birthday to Savannah when the phone rang. It was a realtor, of course. He said, “I’m in the area, and I’ve got some buyers who would like to see your house. We’re about 10 minutes away. Can we come by?” Seriously!! Travis bargained for 20 minutes, and we literally RAN around the house trying to clean up our mess from supper and get the girls ready to leave the house. Somehow we did it, but whew. You never know when you’ll have a showing or what kind of notice you’ll have, but we figure it’s better to let them come than to turn them away.
- Don’t forget the litter box! Our realtor told us that it’s a good idea to remove any signs of having a pet from your house during a showing. We figured Gabby would hide when people came, but we decided we’d temporarily store the litter box out in the garage while people came to look at our house. After that Saturday morning showing a couple of weeks ago, Travis brought the girls back home, and I went to the grocery store. Well, Travis forgot to bring the litter box back in from the garage when they got home, and he stayed outside with the girls while they played in the driveway. I got home from the store about 30 minutes later, walked into our bedroom, and Gabby had POOPED ON OUR BED. Yes. Why she chose our bed over a hard floor like the laundry room (where her box normally is), I have no idea. Our whole room stunk. I threw our comforter and sheets into the washing machine right away, and the phone rang. It was a realtor….wanting to come see the house in the next 1 to 1.5 hours. Of course. There was no way the comforter would be washed and dried by the time they came, so we ended up washing it for a few minutes, drying it for a few minutes, and putting it back on our bed wet. Whoops. Lesson learned. We’ve now quit moving the litter box out to the garage. We decided it was better to just leave it inside, scoop it right before a showing, put out an air freshener, etc. than to deal with random cat poop around the house. Fun times!
- Temper your expectations. Our family and friends were very optimistic in the days and weeks leading up to us listing our house. Pretty much everyone told us, “I bet your house will sell fast. It looks great. You’ve put so much work into it.” It’s hard not to believe those words when you keep hearing them over and over. By this point, we’ve had 11 or 12 showings I think (I’ve lost count) plus an open house and haven’t gotten a single offer. I know it’s only been 26 days. But it feels like a lot longer than that when you’re putting so much effort into getting the house ready for every single showing. If we have to go through this process again at some point in the future, I will try harder to keep my expectations in check from the beginning, even if everyone around us is confident that our house will sell right away.
- Selling your house is an emotional rollercoaster. This is related to the last point, but it’s hard not to get your hopes up each time you have a showing. What if these people could be “the ones”? We’ve had a buyer say they were “extremely interested” in our house (it was actually an investor looking to buy our house as a rental property), and then we found out the next week that he’d gone and bought a different house and never even made an offer on ours. We were in the top two of another couple’s list of homes, and they went with the other house rather than ours. We’ve had countless people say our house shows well, but they’d rather live in Madison city limits. Or our secondary bedrooms are too small. Or they’re looking for a house with hardwoods in the living area. It’s frustrating to hear that the location of our house or the size of the bedrooms is keeping people from making an offer because those are things we can’t do anything to change. I’m trying not to feel too discouraged because then I won’t be motivated to clean the house for future showings. It’s just a fine line to walk between staying optimistic and being realistic, and I’m not sure I’ve found the right balance yet.
I feel good about the fact that we’ve had a lot of interest in the house so far even if it hasn’t led to any offers. Maybe we just haven’t had the right people come along yet. We had a showing earlier this evening and are supposed to have one in the morning, so who knows—maybe these will be our people! :) I’m staying cautiously optimistic/realistic—whatever that means ;)
