Thinking about...

...selling your house?
(warning...long post)

Few minutes left in naptime around here, and I thought I would share some tips on selling your house since we've just lived/ are living this experience. I am by no means a pro at this...ha...and we did it all for sale by owner so most of my tips apply to that...here they are in no particular order.

1. Organize and clean
We put our house on the "market" Oct. 1...spent one long Saturday cleaning and organizing. I read online about how to "showcase" your house. I organized like crazy, everything in our house has a place OR a place to hide in the event of a showing. Matt shirts in his closet were (yes were) organized by short/long sleeve, striped, solid, plaid, buttons facing same direction. The hangers in closets all hanging same way, get rid of extra hangers...why we hang onto those, who knows?!

On hiding, like dirty clothes in baskets, don't have time to wash...throw them in the washing machine, dirty dishes, put in the dishwasher. I have a basket on my dresser of stuff like lotion (most recent item stretch mark removal lotion...post in itself), deodorant etc. well that basket always was hidden in our tv stand, behind a closed door. My kleenex box fit nicely in my jammy drawer. You get the point.

We de-cluttered our kitchen...got rid of baby birth announcements, old Christmas card pics off of fridge, sad I know. Got rid of basically anything everywhere that was sitting around and didn't have a purpose.

2. Create a website...we used fsbo.com...Matt designed/ created a more personalized url with our adress in it. Put it on craigslist, zillow.com and we went ahead and paid about $300 to get it put on MLS, which listed it on listingbook and realtor.com...so worth it!

3. Take good pictures for your flyer...we did this after we had that first major cleaning, and speaking of flyers print them in color, makes them more appealing. Keep flyers in your box, might sound simple but I can't tell you how many houses I've visited and no flyers, makes me check that one off my list!

4. Get a good sign...duh! Ours was pimp, looked like a real estate company, I really think that is why people stopped by so much. Honestly think people are scared of the fsbo process, we were!

5. Have a plan for cleaning for a showing...our plan start in one room, finish that room and move on, no helicopter cleaning. On cleaning, buy a good all purpose cleaner that does not smell like clorox! My current fave is Method Sea Mineral all purpose cleaner... takes me to Wilmington, NC every time I spray...or something like that, I enjoy the smell so I spray it often!

6. Have patience...we got a TON of showings in the beginning and then it slowed down, probably had something to do with Thanksgiving and Christmas but that's what people said would happen...well after the fact they said that! We were so close to getting a realtor after SC was born but the week after she was born was when we got our offer...really think it was Jesus of course, but just the right couple at the right time, not much more, well probably the tax credits.

So as I am typing this I am praying that our deal will still go through, we have not closed yet as mentioned earlier in the week, but we are pretty sure it will happen, trusting that it will. We did not need to move, we have a great house. We just wanted a bit more space, perhaps another bathroom, we only have one. The tax credits were tempting as are the interest rates.

Well think that pretty much sums it up...good luck...remember marathon not a sprint!