Friday evening- Receive call from realtor announcing a showing on Wednesday at four thirty.
Saturday morning- Begin worrying about curb appeal of house; decide to spend Memorial Day weekend extending flower bed, putting in edger stones around flower bed, weeding, and planting. Make three trips to Home Depot and one to Meijer to purchase supplies, while husband does lion's share of actual, physical work. Feel guilty and do a little actual, physical work oneself.
Sunday and Monday- Refer to above.
Tuesday- Dust living room and master bedroom, clean and organize lots of random shelves, and scrub stove top. Vacuum upholstery, wash throw blankets, put away laundry, straighten up kids' rooms.
Wednesday- Clean bathroom, vacuum carpets, dust den, sweep kitchen and laundry room. Quickly re-dust living room, where dog hair has settled overnight. Wash, dry, and put away two more loads of laundry. Unload and load dishwasher. Scrub kitchen counters. Make beds. Empty trash cans. Wipe fingerprints from windows and TVs.
Wednesday evening- Get another call from realtor asking to show the house next day at noon. Foolishly agree, even while being aware that you are babysitting two other kids next morning and will be hard pressed to keep up the tidiness while entertaining and feeding four children.
Thursday morning- Keep kids outside as much as possible, even going so far as to put them to work sweeping your front porch. "Help" them pick up Care Bears, Lincoln Logs, Legos, and play kitchen food, load dishwasher with sippy cups and plates, wipe fingerprints off coffee and kitchen tables, and clean up some dubious looking bathroom messes. Make beds. Take kids to meet your mom for lunch. Wonder what you would do without her to help you entertain children in restaurant.
Thursday evening- Reaffirm decision to take house off market if these two showings don't result in anything further. Especially as your realtor also called to tell you that once again an offer has been made on the house you want, and it looks like you may lose it. Sigh in combined dismay and relief. Ponder a summer of fixing up your house and yard just as you want it, without worrying about what might appeal to strangers who are, for all you know, just touring area houses for the heck of it and have no intention of buying the house you just feverishly cleaned for them. Sigh again. It is all relief, that sigh. Contentment and relief.
P.S. The contest for the nursing cover is officially CLOSED, so stay tuned for the announcement of the lucky winner!
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19 comments:
I'm sure this is a huge relief.
Sometimes when something doesn't work out it's because something better is around the corner. My grandma always used to say the old cliche, "when one door closes a window opens."
Horrendous. Hopefully you do get an offer. If not, at least you'll enjoy your summer with no showings.
Have you thought of keeping your house and renting it out? David Bach has a book called The Millionaire Homeowner (or something like that), where he advocates moving up the property ladder by keeping each house you buy along the way and covering the mortgage and expenses with the rental revenue. Apparently real estate is the ticket to real wealth.
I am incredulous at what an icky thing it is to try to sell a house! I will never move! NEVVVVVAAAAARRRRR!
Ugh. Are there still real estate tourists? Because with this market, that is just CRUEL.
I agree, selling a house right now, slash EVER, sounds TERRIBLE! GAH GAH GAH!
I hate house selling. Enough said.
Oh, I so hope that your house sells soon!
You get a full five days notice before a showing??!!
When we sold ours last year we were lucky to get 24 hrs notice for showings. There were many a day when I packed up both kids and a car full of laundry baskets of toys/clothes/messes I just scooped up out of the house! HA!
Good luck with an offer this time! (and with the house you want!!)
Heather- This is the most advance we've ever had. I usually get a day or two, sometimes even just a few hours! But having more time to prepare just makes it worse, for me, because then I obsess over every little thing until the showing day arrives.
And this is why I will never sell my house. This gave me a headache - hope you have some decent booze in the house. :)
Personally, I don't know how you've survived this much in this market. My husband and I are swearing that we'll never move again because selling a house is just too much of a pain in the ass--we'll let our heirs handle, right? Add that to the current market and i think you're totally doing the right thing. Something amazing will come your way when the time is right.
I'm sorry to hear it's been such a pain for you guys! However, after reading your posts over the last couple of months in regards to showings and such, I'd have to say I was much more sympathetic for homeowners when we were looking at houses (we probably looked at 20 of them). I made sure that our realtor gave the homeowners plenty of notice before we wanted to see them and I was definitely a lot less critical than I would have been when it came to cleanliness and upkeep (for the homes that still had people living in them). So you actually helped out people trying to sell their houses here in TX!
And to avoid all the misery you guys are going through, we're doing exactly what lorid suggested: we're not selling our current house, but planning to rent it out instead. Kinda seems like a pain, I know, but we're hoping the extra income will make it worthwhile.
The house thing? Sucks. But I am mostly jealous that you went to Meijer because other than my family and friends it is the number one thing I miss about living in Michigan. In high school I was there several times a week, and I make a point about going at least once every time I am home. Meijer, I love you! Target has nothing on you.
I must keep this post in my mind just in case I ever foolishly decide to move.
Oh honey, I so feel your pain. I am sorry you seem to have lost your other house, but staying put will be so much less painful. You'll find another, even better house some day when the market doesn't suck so horribly.
Isn't it awful how the minute you put a house on the market, it's like you're maintaining it for some mysterious stranger, whose tastes you don't know other than to assume that they're outrageously picky?! Oh, I'm so sorry all this is landing on you. No matter what happens with these last two showings (I'm actually impressed that you're having showings!), at least you will reach some kind of conclusion.
I hope your house sells and that your dream house doesn't disappear. I am NOT looking forward to this next May...
This makes me never want to sell my house unless we already have a new house and can handle 2 mortgages for a while. My goodness, you work hard!
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