<p>DH and I have been in our house for 23 1/2 years, and I’ve known it’s been time to sell for a few years now. (Both sons are pretty much gone.) For the last eight months, I’ve been in a job I absolutely hate – working for not one but two psychopaths – well, a psychopath and someone else who is OCD – and it’s finally dawned on me that the main reason I’m working at this awful job is so I can aford to stay in this ginormous house. </p>
<p>So I just called two real estate agents – had to leave a message with one, but I’m sure she’ll call back soon – and made an apointment with the other. My first question, for the area we live in, is, “Is this a tear-down?” – in which case my job fixing up the house is done! – and, assuming it’s not, we’ll take it from there and do what needs to be done to unload this financial albatross.</p>
<p>Congrats! I admit to a small bit of envy as I would love to downsize right now. House is too big for 4 people now that one is away at school most of the time.</p>
<p>Good luck–hope your house will sell quickly and that you don’t have to do much to get it ready for the market. You must feel great knowing that you can eventually leave the crazy bosses.</p>
<p>dstark: I’m curous about your psychopath and OCD people. Send me a PM if you’d like.</p>
<p>Both agents are coming to see the house on Saturday. (It has to be Saturday because – for those of you who don’t know it – I have to live Out of State during the week for the privilege of working for the psychopath.) (How is the The Wrong Job?? Let me count the ways . . . )</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s a teardown, due to some limitations with our piece of land, but in this neck of the woods about 40% of houses are these days, so I need to confirm that before I fix up the master bath, redo the floors in the kitchen, etc.</p>
<p>Several friends are planning a huge tag sale for next July, so that is one great way we’re decluttering. DH is very anxious over that. Not quite a hoarder but – tendencies, let’s say. It’s been holding me back for a very long time.</p>
<p>One thing we did in our last move, that you might find useful or possible, is we ordered one of those company bins to haul our stuff to storage. It’s a big walk-in crate they hoist into your yard, and you fill it up, and they take it away. Then when you actually move, you can have the crate shipped or delivered to your next house. </p>
<p>It will help with the eventual packing up you need to do anyway, and I found we needed very little in our house while we tried to sell it. And the lack of clutter made it seem oh so spacious and clean! It really also helped to ‘depersonalize it’ as people don’t want to see your personal stuff when they picture living in it. </p>
<p>[The</a> Best Moving & Storage Idea Ever for Self Storage, Portable Moving and Storage Solutions | PODS](<a href=“http://www.pods.com/]The”>http://www.pods.com/) was one of the first companies to offer that sort of service.</p>
<p>DH and I are also hoping to sell this year. We listed briefly last summer but, this being a college town, the market is very seasonal and we decided to sit tight rather than have the house languish in the multi-list over the winter. We have a buiding lot and the start of house plans, but I am afraid to get too invested in the new house in case it takes a while to sell this place.</p>
<p>I have some vague ideas about where we’ll go next – local, for sure – but will it be in Town A or Town B? A detached single-family house, or a condo? And I’m not going to start thinking about it until this house is close to sold. One. Step. At. A. Time. No carts before horses for me.</p>
<p>Someone tell me if negotiating the commission with the real estate agent is feasible. My understanding is that it’s technically 6%, but that’s a huge amount of money and I don’t want to pay that. Tips and techniques, please.</p>
<p>We have an agent who does not work for a percentage; everything is a flat fee, ordered a la carte. So much to put our listing in the MLS, an hourly rate if we choose to have her show the house or handle negotiations. One of DH’s running buddies is an agent in town (very successful w/ 20+ years experience) and he said that a buyers’ agent will not look askance at a 2.25% commission on a house at the upper end of the local market.</p>
<p>VeryHappy…wow…that is one huge first step!! I’ll be interested in watching your tale unfold. We also need to move from our “too big but gee we like it and the location” house. I’m hoping you’ll be a good resource when the time comes for us!!</p>
<p>Hopefully this house business will enable you to ditch the psychopath and the OCD folks.</p>
<p>VeryHappy, I am so with you. We plan to put the house on the market in about a year (spring 2012 is our goal). We haven’t talked to a realtor yet but are starting the “getting ready” process. This weekend DH finally took down an 80’s light fixture from over my kitchen sink and hung a pendant light in it’s place…voila instant update. He also took down the 80’s wooden railing thing that divided my breakfast room from the family room, took the leaf out of the breakfast room table and turned the table on a diff. angle and…whamoo…the whole space instantly looked bigger.<br>
This past summer we got new vinyl replacement windows and new HVAC system. The old ones were original to the house (1988) and knew nobody would want to buy something that old.</p>
<p>We need to renovate the bathrooms, paint the whole house and re-carpet a few rooms.
Little steps at the time really do make you feel as if you’re making progress toward a new phase of life. We have already built our next home and are itching to be able to live there full time. We go down there every other weekend. We’re waiting for the last kid to grad. from college (May 2012 if all the stars align just right).
Good luck VeryHappy.</p>
<p>We too plan to sell our house…probably in two years also. BUT if I’m going to do ANY renovations on this place it has to be SOON so that <em>I</em> can enjoy them before we sell.</p>
<p>My motivation is purely financial. Without this house, I don’t need This Awful Job. </p>
<p>All other things considered, I’d stay here forever. I hate to move. In fact, except for college, this is basically the third place I’ve ever lived. (A few apartments in NYC, but basically the same neighborhood.) For a 62-year-old, that’s longevity in each place!!!</p>
<p>Good you thought of this!! I can so relate. When we got the last house we sold ready for the market, we sort of resented that we never made it like that when we lived there! We were selling the house we had never lived in! It was really so much nicer, and cleaner, and more spacious than we had made it in the years we lived there.</p>
<p>I changed out counter-tops and appliances in my kitchen 2 years ahead of the move so I could enjoy them. Best thing was getting rid of the smooth-top cooker and putting in a 5 burner gas – helped with the sale as well. </p>
<p>The big thing is fixing all the little things. All those ‘deferred maintenance’ projects that you never get around to. We had a big chip in a baseboard molding, a shaky porch railing, some caulking that had gone in the bathroom, and some seriously questionable wallpaper that we’d just lived with. People look for that stuff then use it against you in negotiation. People want clean, airy and move-in ready. The closer you can get to <em>that</em> the better off you will be.</p>
<p>The longest we’ve ever lived in a house was four years…I’m so impressed that you are undertaking moving after 23 years! I think your motivation is very sound and wish you the very best of luck.</p>
<p>Negotiating with the realtor is market specific so ask people who recently sold. In our market, if your house is higher end, 5% is the going rate but anything on the lower end is 6%. There are all kinds of lower cost realtors but in our area the mainstream realtors boycott them and those houses don’t get shown. Conventional wisdom here is the top realtors will charge you the most but sell faster and get you more. YMMV. Good luck</p>
and the getting the house ready part.</p>