<p>We are going to have an open house or two or three. My realtor says 100 people are going to look at my house the first two weeks. Out of that 100…only 10 are home buyers…the rest just like to go to open houses.</p>
<p>This is the first week since we started getting our house for sale where I think we made progress…where more things were fixed than broken. :)</p>
<p>My wife and I have decided to rent an apartment during the home selling season. As the house gets ready for sale, we don’t want to dirty anything. And then, we don’t have to deal with prospective buyers and the lookers and people working on the house.</p>
<p>So…we may move out in two weeks…even though the house probably won’t be ready for 6 weeks. We are going to rent in the area we want to buy…</p>
<p>Dstark – We rented in the new area but we’d already sold the house. Moving 2x is a pain but does help with the downsizing…you may not mind moving something once but twice really makes you wonder why you are carting this stuff around. </p>
<p>However, as you are having a lot of work done, it probably makes sense not to have to live in it. Just try to stop by the ‘old’ house every day to check up. People leave lights on, leave doors unlocked, track dirt thru, etc. Considering leaving a vacuum and other cleaning supplies there. Will you be staging the ‘old’ house or emptying it out?</p>
<p>It is a lot easier to maintain a vacant home while you’re selling it. We still ran by there before every showing to turn on lights, vacuum, spray air freshener, etc. You would be surprised how much little things like dust and dead insects show up when a house is empty or near empty. And you definitely want to run by after the showing, people leave on lights, don’t lock doors, etc.</p>
<p>It may seem easier to move in stages but I’ve done it both ways. IMO, once and done is a lot easier in the long run. Otherwise, it seems to drag on forever and is a source of constant stress.</p>
<p>I have given or thrown away most of my furniture. I have gotten rid of most of my possessions. Almost starting over…except I will never buy as much stuff.</p>
<p>Everything I own fits easily in my garage and most of the stuff is in my garage.</p>
<p>I think I can move everything myself except for a piano.</p>
<p>As far as staging goes…yes we will stage. I just don’t know how much. The outside areas…living room, dining room, family room for sure. The question is how many bedrooms. I am thinking of staging 3 bedrooms and leaving two vacant. We see a prospective stager tomorrow.</p>
<p>The house I am leaving is very convenient to get to…so we plan on visiting every day. We are not going to change the mailing address. </p>
<p>Granites must vary. My 20yr old (or more) granite countertop has NEVER stained, and I give it quite a workout–and have never sealed it. I only found out this year that such a thing existed.</p>
<p>Oh, and it is light: a combo of grey/white/black.</p>
<p>FauxNom, if you are looking for a gas range take a look at the American Range Company. They have been making commercial ovens for at least 30 years, and recently entered the residential market. Their gas ranges are incredibly well-priced in comparison to Wolf/KitchenAid/et al. And they are really professional in quality. I saw one yesterday, and that is no tinkertoy!</p>
<p>Granites do vary. I also know some people who were unhappy about their stained “granite” when if fact their kitchen countertops were made of marble. :p</p>
<p>We went with Corian counters in the kitchen because we could not afford the granite upgrade (long story - DH decided to change jobs with a big pay cut in the middle of our homebuying process :eek:). I still like our choice - egg-speckled grey Corian with a bright white stripe edge which looks great with our white appliances and white cabinet knobs. When the current stuff begins to croak, granite will be my stone of choice, but I keep my fingers crossed that it is not going to happen for a while.</p>
<p>When buying granite, one thing to consider is where it came from. There have been reports of granites containing higher than usual concentration of uranium and emitting radon.</p>
<p>I’ve had dark granite and light granite - never sealed (other than if it was done at the time of installation). I am very hard on my granite (though I treat my marble with kid-gloves). I have asked a number of granite/marble fabricators about the need to seal and every single one of them told me it’s simply a ploy to sell more products and that repeated sealing isn’t necessary. Apparently, this is one of those controversial practices and indeed, might be dependent on your type of granite - google ‘not necessary to seal granite’. On page one alone…one website says sealers applied by the fabricator last 10-20 years. Another website says with the wrong granite, you can end up with white spots on your granite. Another website say if you seal too frequently you can mess it up. There is a ‘lemon test’ you can try to see how porous your granite is and therefore, might be in need of a sealer. So far I haven’t seen any evidence of major absorbency on mine so I’m not going to worry about it for now.</p>
<p>It helps when you have a wife that wants to throw away everything. :)</p>
<p>My wife wanted to throw away our college diplomas. I had to put my foot down on that. I don’t want to start having those nightmares where I didn’t graduate because I am one credit short. Those diplomas are a reality check.</p>
Momlive:
You mean you agreed to pay the realtor a commission - right? If it’s a FSBO you shouldn’t have to pay any realtor anything and if a buyer is using a realtor to look at homes they usually don’t have a contract with that realtor - they can buy a house through any realtor they want or none at all. I’ve sold a house as a FSBO and purchased a FSBO as well - realtor fees in both cases were $0.</p>
<p>^ You are correct, we didn’t have to work with the realtor but the buyer indicated she wasn’t going to be willing to buy the home unless we did. We had already purchased another home and were getting ready to close on it so decided that it was worth paying the 3% commission to get the house off our hands and not have two mortgages, plus we got a good price for it.</p>
<p>We’ve purchased and sold a few houses FSBO - there are good things and bad things about it. Some times buyers can very obnoxious and it helps to have a realtor in your court (as the seller) who knows the market well and can say to the other realtor ‘nope, sorry not going to do that.’ Or vice-versa. Having done it both ways, I prefer to use a realtor unless it’s going to be a quick sell. In this market with buyers demanding all sorts of things, having a realtor helps.</p>
<p>I will say this…doing a FSBO where we as the seller had no realtor and having to deal with a buyer who had a realtor, we felt at a distinct disadvantage. The best FSBO sales, IMHO, are when neither the buyer or the seller has a realtor. Interestingly, the last house we sold (this summer) our realtor was representing both us and the buyer (we got a discount on the commission). It was okay, we’ve worked with this realtor on several other homes and trusted her to give both sides good advice.</p>
<p>Selling a house is stressful under any circumstances and buying one, only slightly less so. I can see why my husband never wants to move again.</p>
<p>In my area, FSBO sellers severely limit their options by not offering the typical 3% to a buyer’s agent, because most buyers work with an agent. Imagine what happens if a FSBO seller tells the buyers who came with a realtor, “Let’s take the realtor out of the equation, deal directly and we’ll knock a few dollars off the price”? The buyers might think that the seller is trying to hide something that the realtor could easily spot.</p>
<p>When we bought a FSBO house, I found the house, but hired a realtor afterwards for the negotiations. I offered her $1000 (or maybe it was 2K) to handle the paperwork and the process and 50% of every dollar she negotiated down (the seller appeared very firm on the price). She was able to get the owner to agree to a 2K reduction so she got an extra $1000. Worked well for her and for us as we didn’t have to get down and dirty about the inspection results and all. </p>
<p>I prefer to wander around and look at open houses without a realtor as I feel less pressure doing so.</p>
<p>Re: granite</p>
<p>Our White Kashmir granite (definitely not marble) stains like crazy. Strawberry drippings, oil marks left on counter, have all seeped into the granite and required special poultice to remove. I am an expert on this process unfortunately. I can tell when it needs sealing as the water starts leaving dark marks as it seeps in. Fortunately, that just dries out.</p>
<p>dstark – You reminded me that Julia Child wrote that she and her husband threw out their marriage license in a cleaning-frenzy. Be careful!</p>
<p>Because granite is a natural product, it does have variations in stain-resistance – even within product from the same mine. In our house, sealing the granite is on the ‘oh, yeah, I gotta do that some day’ list…</p>
<p>I’ve read that is a telltale sign. Occasionally, I will go into a public restroom that has granite and notice big stains around the faucets as if the water stained it over time.</p>
<p>Though my granite is light, there are so many dark spots due to variation that I’m not sure I would be able to tell. Might have to try the lemon test somewhere inconspicuous.</p>
<p>MomLive, if it hasn’t bothered you so far, leave it be. It was pretty obvious when there was a inch wide pink spot where the strawberry container had been that would not wash off.</p>
<p>So I was watching HGTV, sort of, while doing some computer work this afternoon. There is a show about staging homes to sell them. Granted, these are usually low budget endeavors. But I was surprised to see that some of the paint colors that were selected to neutralize/ brighten the rooms were not neutral to my thinking. I had figured that we would need to repaint when it came time to sell, but the stager today was using colors I already have In my house.</p>