Friday, June 22, 2012

Hold the Presses---Looks Like Our Home is Sold

Stop the presses.  Just about the time we decided to lease our home for three years, we got a call from our real estate agent begging us to show it one last time.  Since we still had not received the $2000 security deposit from our potential lessee, we somewhat reluctantly gave in and started to clean up as much as possible. 

We told our agent the house was full of boxes.  We had started to pack for moving.   He told us the buyer was super motivated and it probably wouldn’t matter, so one last showing after two months of staging our home for people to see.  Bingo:  by 2pm the next day we had a good signed offer.  

We did a counter since we could walk away and still lease, and it was accepted by that evening.  We are getting very close to full asking price.  WOW, so now we get ready for the dreaded “inspection” and appraisal.  Then serious packing and complete cleanout of 14 years of accumulated stuff.

One little hint that may help if you put your home up for sale:  have a huge beautiful stainless steel refrigerator in the kitchen that any potential buyer would love to have.  I suspected it would be attractive and intentionally left it off the listing since we wanted to take it with us to Idaho.  But secretly I knew an offer would request the fridge as part of the negotiation.  So we “gave-in” and are leaving the fridge for the new owners.  It turned out to be a good bargaining chip. 

A beautiful kitchen is what sells a home to prospective buyers.  The first of four similar sized competing homes to sell on our street this summer went quickly because it was decked out with real fancy appliances and granite counter tops.  So make your kitchen as irresistible as possible.  By the way, ours does not have granite counter tops.  We did put in a new floor covering for the kitchen and carpet throughout the house.  So there’s more than one way to make it attractive.    

We did find another home just like ours, minus the walkout basement for the young couple who almost rented ours.  Selling rather than leasing is best for us so we don’t have to worry as landlords 3000 miles away.  Tender mercies continue to come our way as we make progress toward retirement and our trip down the Alaska Highway.

Shhhhhhh---don't tell my wife:  I might just start looking for a small cabin so I can keep a small portion of Alaska to come back to and visit.