You will still have the memories after you move. And you will be making memories in the new house. Yes I felt sentimental as we were moving out, and even more so when I went back to the empty house. But not enough to nix the move :) lafdr

I could have written this. We have lived here 9 years, got married in the back yard. brought my two boys (not twins) home to this house. We have talked about moving for probably 3 years due to an issue in our town which is causing a decline in home values. we have finally decided to sell and are working feverishly to get our house on the market by 6/1. For us, we feel like a weight has been lifted. I am tired of worrying about the town issue, and tired of debating pros and cons.

I will be sad to leave this house, but that does not make it worth staying here.

How do you feel when you think about your decision?

Can you rent out your house? If I owned another house I would sure feel the pressure to sell if I could not afford to rent it out.

I could have written yours and Boopaddaboo's posts! We're working feverishly to list our house that we've lived in for 16 years, since we were first married.

We got married in the back yard, brought our 12 year old daughter home from the hospital to the room she has now, raised our older 3 adult children here, and our first beloved dog (that we brought home our first month in this house) is buried in the backyard.

We've also remodeled it extensively from the ground up. There isn't a room or exterior surface that we haven't redone and it's finally just the way we like it, of course!

We're sad to leave and the kids are sad we're leaving, but once we finish the master bedroom/bathroom project, it will be listed and hopefully sold soon after.

I'm not sure how hard it will be, but I feel like I'm already starting to separate from the house as we finish all these last projects. I am definitely looking forward to moving to our new home in Tennessee.

We are going through something similar. I figure it is either now or when we go to the nursing home.

We are in a busy suburb and are moving the the country. We have always wanted a little acreage so we thought we should do it now -while we are young enough to handle it.

It is going to be really hard though. I am hoping that I will get over it pretty fast and not pine for my old home. I keep trying to tell myself that it isn't the house it is the memories and I can take those with me.

I felt the same with the house I sold 3 years ago, there were many memories in that house and more than that, close attachments with neighbors, all of us really did watch and care for each other.

Everything about the house worked for us but the size, parking. We moved 6 minutes away - I had to drive and time it before telling our most elderly neighbor our plans. We hadn't been house hunting - this one came up, DH somehow really wanted it and we moved. We moved, settled in, enjoyed the holidays and then updated our former home to list - May 1. It sold immediately and I was OK letting go of it, although it's mildly difficult now driving by and seeing the house well kept, the landscaping not.

DH continues to go every week and keep up the neighbors yard for her. The new owners of our old house asked if he could do theirs too (!) and he declined, he wasn't going into the mow and blow business but only helping out - and being paid in homemade cinnamon rolls ;-) This house is twice the size on an acre, with a circular drive that will park many cars, perfect for my people loving DH. There is radiant heat in the ceilings and I find I miss the whole house air cleaner (I have to dust now ;-)) and I miss the neighbors right outside my door, but that's it....no regrets.

A home is just walls. It's a thing. A home is where you and your loved ones are and the memories will travel with you wherever you are. I look at each new home as an opportunity to be newly creative in terms of fixing up and decorating a new place.

I also look at it as a place to make new memories.

Each place brings new joys.

One suggestion is to try to detach yourself from the sales process and let your Realtor help you handle it like a business transaction. Choose a Realtor who closes sales on many houses in your neighborhood. Follow the Realtor's advice about decluttering. Don't ever try to show it yourself. It will be hard when the house stops to feel like your home but once you decide to list the house focus on the good times ahead with your family in the new house.

It's four walls and a roof. Your memories are in your heart. They never go away. It's time to move forward. Keep telling yourself this. It will make it easier.

It turns out in the end. You *think* it's going to be this huge thing but it ends up not being that, and as one commenter noted, a weight lifted.

I still have pangs when I look back at photos or whatever. But then I go outside with the dog, watch the eagles hunting, inhale the fresh air, and those pangs are gone.

As has been said, the house is not the home.

Good luck!

I moved a lot, so was really happy when we bought our current home. After many years of uncertainty, I got really attached to it.

Then circumstances changed, and we understood we'd have to get a different place.

Took me a year to get used to this idea. Then a year to find a new house. Then almost two years of remodel of the new place(while still living here, in the old one). So, these four years of turmoil really helped me to get mentally ready to leave..:)

Now I can't wait to move into my third "forever" house lol.

Until it's real and last "forever house"..you know the one that's very tiny and we don't get to decorate it..yeah..in the end it's going to be fine..

Sometimes I think life takes me to so many places so I can learn a lesson not to get attached so fast and fiercely to things..as much memories as they hold for us. So, trying to learn it, what can I say..

Don't worry. Or: try to worry less. It's a process. Time definitely helps. And good luck to you!

Another thought. We don't own a house. We just are caretakers until the next family moves in to become the next caretakers.

Also, I'm a full time artist and I've been asked so many times how is it that I can work on a drawing and then let "my baby" go. Because I am always thinking of the new one I'll create that will be better. Does it mean I don't love the old one? No, I love them all but realize there's a time to let them all go. Same with a house.

Cried the night we accepted an offer. What has made it easier was focusing on all the new memories that we can make. Our kids range in age from 6-14. It was very important for me to have the oldest spending a few years in our new home. So that he had a home to come back to as he is the most attached to this one.

I cried for every house we sold, I know I would do the same for the current home should we sell it....the memories are priceless, yet we leaned to love new homes.

As long as you're moving on up, the memories are what count.

I thought it as going to be hard, leaving the house with all our memories in them, we had been there for just shy of 12 years. My kids ranged from 5 to 13 when we left. I thought I'd have this walk around the empty house moment. I didn't. I just walked out the door and left. And I can be sentimental. It's a looking forward thing as others have said. Good luck on your new adventure!

This thread came at just the right time as i've gone back forth re:selling because of my *over* attachment to my house! I build it almost 8 years ago, choosing everthing from brick/stone to hardware/light fixtures, so it really is *my* house, hence the over attachment. My reason for moving is to be closer to my daughter and her family, about 50 minutes away depending on traffic~they were 5 houses down the street from me before moving 2 years ago. I should mention i'm 72, and lived in Ca before coming to Austin, and had thought I was getting away from the traffic, but it seems to have followed me. I know in my head as i'm 'getting' older, living closer to family has it's advantages, but I first need to detach myself from the house. Where do I start? HELP!

I have spent much of the weekend so far putting together piles for the dumpster, goodwill and the POD. Depersonalizing all along the way. it is funny that DH has been fixing up and painting this whole week.

It is the depersonalizing that is getting to DH! He said to me this morning - I don't like all this change. I think that means it is working and we are detaching from the house. Three of the houses I had my eye on for us have already got pending offers so I feel this pressure to get on the market ASAP! I don't want to miss the rush!

Not to sound like a cliche Patty - but when you think back on your life 10 years from now, will you be happy to think on the time spent with DD's family, or having your house that you put so much effort in to? The answer might be different for different people. I can tell you I would give anything to have my mom back and for her to have an active part in my kids life. My kids see their grandparents maybe once every 2-3 months. They will never know that closeness I had to my grandparents and cousins growing up and I think they are missing out.

We are 68 years old, and are awaiting the movers today to deliver our furniture in our new home. We have had time to reflect on all the places we've lived over the years, and each has special memories.

The sellers of this house have been gracious and it's obvious that they loved it here. They have talked about the wonderful neighbors and their kids and their dogs, the neighborhood, local restaurants and stores, the birds and other wildlife in the yard. They were here 21 years, we were in our last house for 18.

I'd rather be emotionally attached to my last house than have a "good riddance!" attitude. That would mean that I was miserable in that house, I didn't like it, the memories are not pleasant. Be thankful that you have had wonderful experiences and move on to create more in your new home.

My family and I moved every few years during my 24 years in the Navy. Some houses nicer than others. some areas nicer than others. Some neighbors nicer than others.

We always focused on the next home and became excited about that opportunity for new acquaintances, new schools, new customs.

Typically maintained only minimal contact with previous home neighbors, in spite of having made friends with lots of neighbors while living in previous house!

I once read a little story, maybe one of those Reader's Digest kind of things, from a woman who had bought a house from a Quaker family.

The sellers had lived their whole married lives in the house, raised the kids, etc.

The buyer wife said to the seller wife that she felt guilty to be taking the obviously beloved house away from her, & the seller wife replied, "It makes me happy to think of thee and thy children in the house."

Think like a Quaker lady!

Boo, I talk to my DD at least every other day on the phone, and visit every other week, packing up my 89 lb dog in the car, and have a cat sitter come to the house @$20 per day, since I usually stay 3-4 days. I've been doing this for 2 years. The distance between us has never stopped me from visiting, and she will occasionally pack up the kids on Friday, and come for the weekend. I *know* i'm going to eventually make the move, but I haven't removed myself mentally from the house.

We close in 2 weeks after having lived here for 30 years. We were in our early 30s when we moved in and we retired this week, so yeah, a lot happened here.

I cried after the first time we met with a realtor, I cried when we started "depersonalizing," I cried every time I had the "I can never come back here and look out this window" thought. But I didn't cry when we started moving to the new place or when we signed the agreement to sell or even today when we signed all the final stuff (although I noticed there was a box of tissues on the table).

We still have a couple of hurdles, though-- last truckload leaving, which means the art and last furniture will be gone, and the final drive away a few days later. I think it has helped to have it not all happen at once. I had visualized closing and handing over keys and driving away all at once and the thought was leaving me in a puddle.

I will never think of this place as a mere "four walls" though. Some of the best and worst times of my life were here. Plus we touched every surface, planted every plant, etc. It will always be "home" in some ways.

We moved a week ago after 17 years in the same house. I am a bit sad and the first night was hard. I am trying to look forward. I think I will feel better when we are finished unpacking and getting the other house ready to sell.

If you believe that homes retain the emotional aura of the people who lived there, think of it as helping another house have a loving, happy feeling. You are leaving a house with a loving happy aura, and giving another house the same aura, so to speak. Spreading love around...

My dh and I buy houses, fix them up, live in them for 2 yrs then sell and do it again. We think of it as "beautifying our city, one house at a time".

I lived in one house my entire childhood (my parents lived there 40+years) -- I think there is a great benefit to not moving your kids around too much when they are young.

After my parents sold the house (I was out and married with a baby) -- I had dreams about the house for years! There was nothing grand about our 1200 sf ranch but it holds all my childhood memories -- family parties, first dates, neighbors, decorating and redecorating.... It made me sad that my kids would not get to visit the house I grew up in (although they probably wouldn't think that much of it anyway)!

I have tears in my eyes just reading your posts. We have a second home in Florida under contract and getting our 1st home ready to put on the market. In our 50's and going to build a single level. Our 1st home is too big but we are both having a hard time though we know it is the right thing to do. Our second home under contract is also tough for me because we have some very good memories and I love the location as well as many other things about it, however, soon it will need new windows, new AC, new roof, new pool cage, new pool heater, etc. Selling two homes so close together is a lot to deal with and causes me great anxiety but I know having a one level will be much easier for us. We are actually building on a lot we own next door. I second guess all of it.