Let me start out by saying that I know how
daunting a task selling a house can be. I’ve only sold one and that was enough.
But I discovered a way to ease the pain of the sale. Just pretend you’re having
a yard sale, one in which you are selling the entire yard along with the house
sitting on it. You might even want to get one of those small round color
stickers and write, oh let’s say, “$150,000.00” on it and affix it to the side
of the house. Then when those early Saturday morning hoarders come to your yard
sale, they’ll know how much your yard sale item costs without having to
interrupt you while playing Candy Crush on your smart phone. That’s assuming
they can find that small sticker on the side of your house.
Once we signed a contract to build a new
house, the first major decisions we had to make was how much to ask for
our existing house and when to put it on the market. Fortunately we had a
really good realtor who researched the value of the house and made a
recommendation about how much to ask. It turned out to be a good number in that
we eventually received an offer that was real close. But the bigger issue was
when to put it on the market. We didn’t want to put it out there too soon and
end up having to move to an interim dwelling and put a lot of furniture in
storage. We also didn’t want to have to pay the movers twice. On the other hand,
we didn’t want to put it on the market too late and end up not selling it for
months on end. What to do? What to do?
Well, we ended up putting it on the market
about 4-6 weeks before we thought we would be able to move. Our thinking was
that if an offer came in quickly, the buyers would be able to wait that long
before moving. Of course, as we all know, thinking can sometimes get you into
trouble.
We were very fortunate in that it was about
one month before a serious offer came our way. After a bit of negotiation, we
settled on a price. That’s good, right? No, that’s bad! You see, the new house
wasn’t yet ready. It looked like it would be another four weeks. Oh, that’s bad!
No, that’s good! You see, the buyer was in a position to wait that long before
moving. That’s good! No, that’s bad! You see, the movers weren’t sure if they
could move us at that time. We’d have to go ahead and get put on their schedule
even though we weren’t positive about the timing of the house completion. Oh,
that’s bad! No, that’s good! We were able to schedule it about a week later
than the expected completion date. Now that’s good! No, that’s bad! If we ended
up not being able to move on that date, it might be weeks before we could
reschedule. Oh, that’s really bad! No, that’s good! You see, the buyer was
really flexible about when she could move and as it turned out the house was
indeed complete before that date. Wow, that’s really good! You’re darn tooting that good!
Well, except for one little thing. The day
we moved was a hot, humid, muggy, sunny, southern day. We felt sorry for the
movers. They were sweating up a storm, but that storm didn’t change the
weather. The workers were taking frequent breaks and at one point thought they
may have to split the work into two days. But they stuck with it, spending
about 10-11 hours and making two trips with that huge truck of theirs.
All went pretty smoothly, although there
were a few mishaps. First, one of the workers decided to remove the mirror from
our dresser by himself. It ended up slipping out of his hands and making a
large crashing noise. I thought a train has broken through our bedroom wall. I
was afraid to go see what the room looked like. As it turned out, the mirror had
not busted, but it did cause its wooden frame to crack near the top. I was
furious and was about to retaliate in some way, but thought better of it when I
realized how long we’d be at the emergency room getting my foot out of his
butt. I reminded myself that it was to be expected for things to go south
during a move, especially when you are already in the south. Another worker
used a stain pen to disguise the exposed inner wood at the crack and we called
it even.
Another thing that got my gourd was when
they were moving in the last load at the end of the day. We had several rolling
metal racks we used for storage at the old house and were planning to use them
at the new house as well. They had loaded the racks up with packed boxes and so
forth and wrapped then all up in cellophane for the truck ride. I thought they
would empty them before moving them into the house, but they were planning to
roll them in with all that weight on them. At first they were going to come in
through the front door and run them across a lot of hardwood. I told them I was
concerned about those wheels digging into the hardwood given all the weight. I
showed them an alternate route that would mostly be on tile, which would be
more durable. However, there were a few spots where they would still have to
pass over hardwood. One of the workers got a bunch of cardboard and laid it out
over those spots. What a good idea, I thought. Pad those floors! But as it
turned out, there was one spot in a hallway where the racks had to turn left
and then immediately back right. Well, that was enough for the wheels to dig
all the way through the cardboard and into the wood. After all was said and
done, ruts were left in the hardwood. Not terrible, but enough to raise my ire.
But once again I decided I didn’t want to spend the night at the emergency
room, so just let it go. I didn’t even mention it to them. And on top of that I
gave them a good tip. Hey, it had been a hot, humid, muggy, sunny, southern day
and the movers were completely exhausted. Overall, they had done an awesome
job. Those rutted hardwood slats could be replaced.
Before having the hardwood guy come out and
replace the damaged slats, I decided to check on the Internet to see if there was
a way to repair them. As it turned out there was…using a wet rag and a hot
iron. Great! I decided that one day soon I would attempt the repair, but that
day kept getting pushed out and has not yet arrived six months later. And
actually it seems as if the wood has expanded back a bit causing the ruts to
not seem so bad. I now just consider what remains of the ruts to give the house
some character. Think of this way. What does a furniture maker do when the
quality of the wood he buys starts deteriorating? He does funky stuff to it and
calls it “distressed” and says it’s the latest thing in furniture and charges a
premium for it. Let’s just say that those hardwood slats have a distressed
look. Hey, if I ever have to sell, that might bring us an extra thousand or
two.
There is an interesting aspect to the sale
of our old house that I would like to mention before I finish. The person who
ended up buying our house was someone we used to go to church with…when she was
a child. When she told us her parents’ names, we remembered them although we
never really knew them well. It turned out that a painting we had hanging in
our foyer helped seal the deal. The painting was of the church where the buyer
and we used to attend together. The artwork was painted by another friend of
ours that had gone to that same church. My wife had won it at as a door prize
at a lady’s function she had attended years ago. In fact, the buyer liked the
painting so much she offered to buy it, but Kathy was not willing to part with
it. We told her that should we ever decide to sell it, she’d get first option
on it.
Well, this is my last installment in this
series. I hope you have enjoyed my posts.
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