Most people have experienced living in a home while trying to sell the home....and survive. I am struggling and we have only had our house on the market seven days. I'm struggling with keeping it pristine of course but also with the evening showing appointments! How am I supposed to live in our house if we can't be there until 7:30 pm each night? How is Ann supposed to eat a home cooked dinner, play, bathe and get in bed if we have strangers touring our home? Any tips from people who have dealt with this and a little one are appreciated.
Being in commercial real estate is different than residential obviously but I do know the simple fact that if the property is easy to show you are more likely to have an offer/buyer than if you make it difficult to see. Therefore I hate to limit the time frame that someone can see our house. Especially since most people cannot look until they are off work in the evenings. So my prayer is that we sell our home quickly and can get back to a normal schedule.
Also, the stress of keeping our house in public worthy condition is wearing me down. For example.... yesterday morning I was late. Super late. This lateness caused me to leave the house without making our bed, cleaning up the kitchen, picking up spare sour milk bottles, hiding used bath towels, emptying Ann's poop bucket (ha... gross she has a diaper pail... I'm mean) and apparently our couch was in disarray. Luckily the realtor called me 45 minutes in advance to make SURE it was ok she showed the house at 2:00. Well crap!! I didn't know she had called the day before to schedule and she thankfully called me again to make sure it was ok since she had not heard back. That gave me 45 minutes to drive home from work (it's a 30 minute commute) and get the house in seeable condition. I did it. In record time. But, found out last night that I didn't touch our couch. Which shouldn't be that big of a deal but I am so damn OCD that when John pointed out laughingly that I missed the couch I saw that our blanket was all "used" and scrunched up on the couch. Our pillows still had our head marks in them from falling asleep the night before on the couch. There was a milk bottle stuck in the couch corner and a dirty sock (of John's) laying there. I AM HORRIFIED that two separate realtors showed our house with my couch looking like that. Like, I almost cried and couldn't sit down for a bit and relax because I was so embarrassed that it looked like that. Can anyone say.... who cares?? I clearly need to bring it down a notch.
No one is going to decide not to buy our house because of a messy couch. But, how your house "feels" makes a huge impact on whether someone can imagine themselves living there. And I have been priding myself on making my house feel amazing, cozy and like someplace you do not want to leave. It smells great, the glow of strategic lighting is perfect for evening showings and I'll say my house shines in the fall with the trees, the deck and open windows. So... a messy couch makes a difference. Our house is small and everything, I mean everything, must be in its' place or it will feel cluttered and not large enough. My heart is beating fast again. I need some meds apparently.
Say a short prayer or light a candle or whatever your religion is that we get our house under contract quickly before I get admitted into the crazy ward or John sends me off to "rest".
Also, tips on how you lived in a house while trying to sell are appreciated. What is important to you when you're looking at a house and what isn't? Does the smell of sour milk turn you away? I'm kidding... we're not that bad about bottles but seriously, Ann does hide them when she's done.
No comments:
Post a Comment