Brain Dead

I was up really late working last night so I am pretty brain dead right now.  I actually feel numb to this whole process.  I've been trying to take emotion completely out of it because I'm so sick of getting my hopes up and then being disappointed when reality slaps me in the face.

This weekend we are scheduled to see 5 houses.  2 of them are Spec homes so I can't show them to you.  They are in a newer part of a neighborhood we like ok.  A bigger problem is that they will take several months to finish and probably have crappy unestablished yards. 

Of the 3 that are "move in ready" one is a foreclosure.  In a great neighborhood but at a ridiculously low price which makes me think that the inside has been beaten down.  Mr. Molly thinks we could put money into it and make it nice.  I know that this takes time, patience, and money and I don't really have any of those to spare on a "fixer upper."

So now we are down to two.  Both in the same neighborhood... the neighborhood we like ok. 

This one:

It seems like it might be pretty good.  I don't love the street appeal from this picture and I don't love the fireplace and the lawn/yard probably needs work the back.  But it could be pretty good.

And then this one:

Which just looks really small in the picture (why do realtors do that) when in fact it's 3200 sq feet above ground.  It does not have a finished basement, but is at a lower price point so we could finish it the way we want.  It looks like it doesn't have houses behind it which is nice.

There's also a new listing that just came on today (OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!) in a neighborhood we haven't looked in too much.  This neighborhood is kind of like our current one in places, but then there are some places that are nicer.  Mr. Molly drove by it (b/c there are no pics online yet) and said the street appeal is very good.  So we are going to try to add it to the list:

Could "NO PHOTO" be "THE ONE"?????   Who knows.

SOLD!!!!!!!

And they accepted our counter!!!!!   So we sold the house for 98.5% of list price and in 4 days.  Pretty damn awesome if I do say so myself. 

Ok enough horn tooting.  I'm going to now tell you the hidden costs of selling your house. 

1)  Staging - we are fortunate b/c my mom is an excellent stager.  Thus, we did not have to pay a fee to have her stage the house.  However, in the process of staging the house she did purchase some things and that total cost was maybe $300.  A stager would cost like $350.  This is a cost that is TOTALLY worth it.

2)  Realtor Commission - RL dropped her commission from 6% to 5% because we are both selling and buying with her.  She would not reduce it any more because of the costs that she personally incurs from marketing the house.  This is another cost that is TOTALLY worth it.  RL hired a professional photog to take the pictures to go on the listing.  Of all the houses in our price range on the internet our definitely showed the best.  The photog used a wide angle lens and it made the house look a lot bigger than it is. She also spent considerable time on the internet view of the listing and hosted a realtor tour of the house.

3)  Bins - Holy crap did I buy a lot of bins.  Bins for the closets to put out of season clothes and bins for the basement to organize holiday decorations, all the stuff we took out of the main house for staging, and all the kids books and toys.  I probably bought a total of 15 bins.  Those things are not cheap, even at Meijer.

4)  Dinner - When people want to see your house at night, you need to be out of it and so you need to go out to dinner.  Cost for a family of 4 at a sit down restaurant is about $50 with tip.  If this happened to us more than the 3 times it did, we would have had to start going to McDonald's and then we would all get fat.  Well, only I would get fat b/c Mr. Molly and the 2 kids have insane metabolisms.

5)  Electricity - For every showing you have to turn all the lights on.  Every single light, all the overheads, lamps, and closet lights.  If the showing is at 1pm, you need to turn the lights on when you leave at 7am and they still on till 2pm.  Even then, the showing realtor doesn't turn off all the lights, only the overhead ones.  Related to this cost is the cost of light bulbs and the cost of keeping your heat/air at a normal and comfortable temperature all day.

6)  Carpet Cleaning - You need to have your carpets cleaned before you show the house.  People who don't do this baffle me.

7)  Cleaning Lady - our normal every other week appointment was changed to every week.  This cost could be avoided if you own cleaning supplies, which I don't.

8) Landscaping/Handyman - again if you have time and skillz then you can avoid this cost.  We don't so had to pay people to paint and power wash and edge the beds, etc.  For us, it was worth it.

9) Sleep - I had to sacrifice sleep and that was a cost to me.  I had to go to bed an hour later and get up an hour earlier in order to have everything perfect every day for showings.

10) Sanity - This is self-explanatory and not really a "hidden" cost.  Everyone around me could see that I was slowly unravelling.

So in a nut shell, I'm so freakin' happy this is over and that we only had to show our house for a total of 4 days.  The buyers are coming in Sunday morning to view it one more time, so after that I can go back to being messy.  Shhhhhh... don't tell Mr. Molly.

Shortest Lived Blog Ever

So this could possibly be the shortest blog ever.  We already have an offer on the house! The offer came in less than 27 hours after it went on the market.  We had that horrible showing Monday night, then these people came in this morning at 8:30am and made an offer today at 8:15pm.  CaRAYzee.  We may or may not have had a showing at 10:30am today, there was no card or anything.

We have 2 more showings scheduled for tomorrow and also a realtor tour.  We have to counter by 5pm and we are set to see a house we may like to buy at 6pm.

Right now it's just me and Mr. Molly debating over what to counter-offer.  Their offer was good.. clean.. no contingencies, no closing costs.  All they want is a close date of 6 weeks from now. 

So much to debate, so much drama.... generally 2 things I thrive on. 

Tomorrow: 
Realtor tour at 9am
Showing at 10:30am
Cleaning lady at 11:30am
Showing at 3:30pm
Respond to offer at 4:30pm
See a house at 6pm

Oh and work my full time job where I have 3 very important meetings that I have to lead and "be here now."

Oh and make sure my kids are dressed and fed and at school and then picked up on time so I don't have to pay $1 per minute per kid.

Oh and stay within my WW points when all I want to do is stick my face into a pint of Jeni's ice cream.

Shortest blog ever.  Maybe.  It could be all over on May 22nd.

The Ball Ran Me Over

Realtor Lady (RL) told me today, on Judgement Day, "Let's get the ball rolling!"  I have to say that the damn ball ran me over.

I waited all day to see when it would be listed.  I kept checking my email b/c RL promised she would send it right away.  No email, no email, no email. 

Around 4:20pm I got a phone call and it was the "central showing agency" (or something like that) saying that a realtor wanted to show my house from 6:30pm to 7:30pm tonight.  I was like "um, it's not even listed yet".  So I said it was fine and continued the business meeting I was supposed to be having at my desk.

5 min later the "people who make showings" (or something like that) said that the realtor changed the time and now wants to see it tonight from 6-8pm.  I played it cool, "um, ok."  Then I hung up and freaked the f out. 

Shut down my computer and ran out of the building dialing up RL as I went.  Left a probably very screechy message on her VM saying "I didn't even know the house was listed and now I'm supposed to do a showing from 6-8pm and it's 4:45pm and I'm downtown and my house is full of clothes b/c I haven't unpacked from my Easter trip!!!!"  She called me back and said that the house was in fact NOT listed but this realtor must have driven by and saw the sign, which was put up this morning. 

Ok, I guess.  Then RL said that 8-10 is a ridiculous amount of time and she would call the showing realtor and fix it.  I am already falling in love with RL.  Anyway, she called me back and the showing was rescheduled for 6:45-7:15pm.

Still rushed home.. Mr. Molly and I set everything right.. which involved putting all the laundry in the empty suitcases in the basement.  (we are super-clever)  We were out of there by 6:05pm.

Took the kids out to a $50 dinner and by the time we left there I had gotten 3 more calls from the "official showing schedulers" (or whatever they are called) and had 2 showings set up for tomorrow and one on Wed.  Holy crapola!

Got home and were like "phew" for 5 seconds until the doorbell rang.  It was the showing realtor saying "oops, we are late!".  Dude lady... it is now 7:55pm.  You were supposed to come from 6:45-7:30pm.  I gave her the maloccio (Italian evil eye) but she busted into my house anyway. 

So Mr. Molly and I took the kids and stood in the backyard while she showed these people the house.  We just stood there staring at each other as the sky got dark thinking "what the hell happened to our orderly life?"  At least that's what I was thinking.  He was probably thinking about sports.

And then the kids went to bed without a bath and I collapsed from my emotional roller coaster.  The end.