After the elation of finding and getting the perfect house comes the sobering reality that we have to get our current house ready to sell. There aren’t many major things that need doing, the only exception being new flooring in the kitchen. The rest of the work is in cleaning, uncluttering, and the like. The detail stuff.
When we sold our Garner home, a helpful real estate agent loaned us a video showing how to get a home into showing condition. It was very, very helpful. One has to generate “curb appeal” to get potential buyers to pay attention. The interior has to be uncluttered as far as the knick-knacks go, and anything personal should be stored away. A potential buyer should walk into the home and feel at ease and not like they’re visiting a stranger’s house. Messy shelves or surfaces register as work in a potential buyer’s head and diminish the appeal. I think that a house in perfect showing condition has all the sterility of a hotel room.
We also had a secret weapon in our bid to sell the Garner home: a bread machine! Any home smelling of freshly-made bread is going to instantly appeal to most people. We’d get word that someone was on the way to look at it and we’d crank out a new loaf of bread. It didn’t matter that we’d had two others we hadn’t eaten yet – we just needed that smell! Damned if it didn’t work, too!
My blogging will take a hit for the next few weeks as we concentrate on a long list of to-dos. I’ll pop in when I can to update y’all. In the meantime, if you’ve got friends or coworkers who are looking for a great North Raleigh home, you know where to find me.
When I was in Germany, the older Germans who had lived through WWII used to say:
Dreimal umgezogen ist so schlimm wie einmal ausgebombt.
(Moving three times is as bad as being bombed out once.)
Nowadays they say:
Drei Mal umgezogen ist wie einmal abgebrannt
(Moving three times is like being burnt out once.)
Anyway you say it it’s not going to be a case of
getting there is half the fun.
But good luck. I’d offer to help but 11 hours each way is a bit too much for me. You might talk my daughter into helping. She usually knows a lot of strong backs she might be able to recruit.
Ron
I feel your pain. I am filled with anticipation on our new house; but, the anticipation does not include the actual act of moving. Dragging all the stuff down from the attic and the piano loom large in my thoughts.
Yeah, moving is no fun. Kelly and I (my kelly 😉 ) thought about buying a newer, larger house in Raleigh but the reality of moving shut those plans down. We ended up with a condo at the coast as a consolation prize.
Good luck with the move!!!