Toilet seats down???

kathyg--we actually have a toilet in the upstairs bathtub right now. The seat is down, but I don't think he'll be photographing that! We got someone out to fix the sub flooring, but we need to give the tiles 2-3 days to set before we can reseat the toilet. All the other toilet seats are always down :-).

We're expecting to time this so showings can start on Saturday, by which time the toilet will be usable again.

One of the reasons we picked the realtor we did was his selling record--and the incredible photographs in his listings.

Tell your DH the agent is an expert (and sells houses quickly) for a reason! It's a good thing you did what you did. I actually faced a lot of doubt from several posters on this website for the expensive improvements we made per our agent's advice but we immediately got an offer over list price on day 2 after listing it, even though my agent set tomorrow as the "acceptance date" for offers. Those buyers are traveling and made their agent submit the early offer. My agent anticipates a multiple offer situation!

As for the garage, are you going to be moving things into storage during an open house? Or are you only allowing showings by appointment starting Saturday? I'd aim to get the stuff out before people show up if you can. It's awkward if you're parked on the driveway trying to move stuff out and doesn't lend the best first impression.

FYI, our photographer took photos of every room in the house, including all 3 bathrooms. If your toilet is in the bathtub, then that means the photographer can't take a photo of it. It's too bad, but as long as the other photos look appealing, you'll still get potential buyers in the door.

Finally, we left our garbage/recycling bins in the side yard. The photographer only took photos of the front (directly facing the house and one 3/4 angle shot) and the back yard (from 2 angles).

Good luck and hope you sell quickly and for a great offer!

Can a neighbor keep your cans for awhile?

Can't wait to see your listing, if you post it. Selling is very hard emotionally. Keep your chin up and come here for support.

Sounds like you really checked out your realtor, should be fine. The one I had for my Mom's place was really good about returning calls, texts and emails.

We had no place to keep the kitchen can, except out, so last one out of the house took it in their car!!!

What area of Ohio are you located in? Hope the pansies will survive the snow on Friday ;) good luck to you!

The photographer was great. I can't wait to see the pictures! We also opened the hot tub for all pictures including the back yard--I think that a closed hot tub looks unappealing--an open one makes it clear that it works and can be used.

I know it's a shame there isn't a picture of the upstairs bathroom, but there's not much we can do about it. The tile repair guy was clear that we can't reset the toilet until tomorrow or Friday. If our agent thinks it's an issue he can have the photographer come back Friday or later.

We have room in the garage for the recycling and trash cans (we have a 3.5 car garage), so I think that'll be fine. Our side yard doesn't have a place to put them.

For the stuff in the garage, there's not much we can do to get it out until Friday evening when the movers come--we've got stuff in the downstairs unfinished area and the garage and that'll get loaded onto a truck Friday evening. That means that as long as we leave Saturday morning (as we plan), the garage will look great by the time people come to look at it. We just won't be able to have any Friday showings.

We're not moving "out"--we'll live here until it sells, but we took the declutter advice to heart! We also figured that as long as we had to pack other things we might as well get them packed for this first move into storage.

Sounds like you have it all under control. Wishes for a quick sale!

The sign is up in the yard but the listing isn't up yet. We're waiting to get the draft from the agent with the intent of it going active tomorrow.

So did it go live?

Beth - I think you did the right thing by following your agent's advice. Our photographer comes on Thursday and we've done everything you mentioned - our pool and hot tub are up and running, my pansies went in last week, the mover arrives tomorrow morning to move excess furniture to our new house.

The carpet and grout cleaner come Tuesday and the windows get washed on Wednesday. We've spent the last 3 months removing wallpaper, painting, repairing sticky doors and locks. We even hired a home inspector to come through the house to see what he might find- he did notice several items that a prospective buyer's home inspector might include in his report. They're all taken care of now.

I hope you have a quick and uneventful sale and get all that you want.

The listing went up late on Friday.

We had all the stuff we removed for staging (but didn't sell) loaded onto a truck Friday and reloaded in a storage area near our lot on Saturday.

In the process of moving things out of the basement storage area, we discovered a crack in the foundation with a seeping leak. The agent is having someone in tomorrow to fix it (we're out of town). The leak was behind a piece of furniture we've been storing for our daughter. Fortunately, it never reached the floor. We'll get it fixed and amend the disclosure form.

We had 1 showing Sunday, 3 today, and 3 are scheduled for tomorrow. (I think one of the ones tomorrow is a second look)

Our agent said that in our price range, he generally hopes for 7 showings in the first two weeks. The last house he sold in our neighborhood (fall not spring) had 7 showings in the first month.

If I figure out an easy way to get the photos onto another page without identifying information, I'll share the listing.

This has been a busy day--

An agent has our agent to provide average utility bills, the HOA fee, and any restrictions regarding fences. I think that was from someone doing a 2nd showing.

There are 3 more showings lined up--one of which is a repeat agent, so might be a second showing.

We're trying not to get our hopes up but really are hopeful for a quick sale!

Very excited for you!

Looks like It will be gone before you know it (:

We've had 12 showings, several of which were second showings. Everyone rated the house a 4 or 5, and several expressed concern about our neighbor's yard :-(.

We got an offer Wednesday night. We countered. They countered our counter. We accepted that.

So, the house is under contract.

There were two really weird things about the offer. One is that it was signed by them about 2:30 (meaning we didn't learn of it until about 5:30) and they wanted a response by 8:00 pm. We didn't make that. Who makes an offer with 5.5 hours to respond? I understand 24 hours--that makes sense--nobody wants it to drag out, but that seemed really strange.

The second thing is what they asked for: all appliances (we intended that), the spa (we intended that), the work bench in the garage, all the shelving in the garage and basement, and two table lamps in the living room. Who asks for lamps?

Our counter left in the appliances, spa, and shelve units (those are easily replaceable). We removed the work bench (my husband is emotionally attached to his work bench and they just don't make them like that anymore). We also removed the table lamps. We wouldn't have let a deal fall apart over those items but we were just so flabbergasted by the lamp request! We figured leaving in the shelf units ($700-$1000 to replace them all) was reasonable--but declined the other two and they accepted that.

Pricing was interesting--several feedbacks were that it was priced too high. One was "just right". Apparently our pricing worked--we don't think it was too low (as one might when it sells fast) and we don't think it was too high to reach a good final price (as evidenced by the speed of sale)

The listing went up on Friday and we signed a contract on Thursday--we're thrilled.

Now to find a place to live while our next house is being built!

Congratulations! What a quirky offer, indeed. Now I'm curious what is so special about those table lamps...I have an image in my mind of those leg lamps from A Christmas Story!

They're nice lamps but not anything that special. I bought them at Home Goods--but it did take me a year to find something I loved.

The time thing...we had that 2 years ago when we last sold. I think it is a tactic some use when they think a property might be hot...they don't want another offer coming in that might be better than theirs. We ignored it but we had multiple offers.

The lamps. Strange. Some people just ask for stuff. If you don't ask, you won't get. You handled it well. Good luck on the close!

That lamps ARE cool - and they look awesome picking up your window swag... They really pop.

Congrats. Love your decor too, and those lamps very unique. (!

why, if window valances convey-I can see why they wanted the lamps, and thought it wouldn't hurt to ask. Maximum you would say "no" which you did. Very strange to me too..but I learned a lot here on these forums about things I've never heard of before.

Tell them the maker of the lamps if you know..they'll appreciate the info, and source them themselves.

Anyway, congrats, and wishing you a smooth sale!

(our buyers also wanted response that very day, within a few hours..to which we first said "no" as DH was working late and we couldn't even talk properly before the next morning..then though we talked on the phone so they did get eventually their answer that same day, just a bit later)

Congrats! I'll be looking forward to your posts in the "how's your build progressing" threads :)

Congratulations!

That is great news - congrats on your quick sale. I probably missed this in other threads but where will you go while you're building your new place?

We just received the photos of our home yesterday and they came out great. Our agent is letting us pick the 25 we want for the listing and the sale sign goes up this week.

I hope we have a quick sale because my DH is really stressed - the agent who sold us the new house was less than forthcoming about conditions he was aware of. None of them would have altered our plans but it really annoyed DH and now he's second guessing everything the realtor who is listing our home says.

Congrats again, Maire

Yesterday we drove by several possible rental properties and saw inside of a townhouse about 3 miles from where we're building--and it's perfect for us for a year.

So, I'm filling out the 'application' and as soon as he checks our credit rating, it'll all be settled. He was reluctant to rent to someone who he knows will only stay a year, but I guess we seem super respectable :-)

It's all coming together really well--on the 7th, everything was uncertain. Now, we have half of our stuff in a storage area near our new lot, a contract on our existing house, a closing date, a moving plan, and a place to move to.

The movers who loaded our truck and the ones who unloaded were both good, so we'll be using the same companies again.

We've kind of stalled (until after the move, not any longer) on the house plans--we've got to focus in getting out of our house in a month!

Sometimes you just have push something back because your plate is full. You'll get back to the home plans once you knock a few of these things off the plate. Congrats. I like the lamps, too. Good find.

The buyer's agent came by today (termite inspection, roof inspection) and we chatted a bit--apparently the woman fell in love with the lamps and the agent asked but "do you love the house?" :-). The man said to ask for the workbench but he knew they wouldn't get it. It was interesting hearing some insight into their thought processes--but it looks like everything is going smoothly.

Congratulations! Thats funny that the buyer fell in love with the lamps :)

I thought I read that you didn't include them in the sale but if they don't have any real sentimental value and you're not tied to them it would be a really nice gesture to leave them.

We just moved into our new home and our seller left us her custom made reclaimed wood kitchen island, even though it's freestanding and she didn't have to. I think her agent might have mentioned how in love we were with her home and her style, including the island, and she gifted it to us. We were so touched and impressed by her, and went out of our way to make the rest of the transaction as smooth as possible, not asking for any repairs or anything during the process.

When we recently sold our home we accepted the buyer's request to buy our RH entertainment center and new leather sofas, even though we loved them (and I really miss those sofas!). Really, they were purchased specifically for that house and worked so well there that it felt right.

I'm also now finding that many of my beloved furnishings we did move with us really don't work so well in this new home and will need to be replaced. Either the size and/or the style is off because the homes are so different.

I love the lamps myself--and like the way they go with the painting over the mantle and the blue in the living room rug, so I'm keeping them. I checked--there's no sourcing information on them and I googled the image and didn't find anything I could share with them.

The guy was also interested in buying some of our network equipment, but our backup/server equipment is coming with us. From what the agent said, I'm not even sure the guy understands what equipment is there. My husband is a network security engineer so our home setup is pretty elaborate)

It's time now to enter serious packing mode, even though I had a partial meniscectomy this morning. I'll see how much I can do with my leg propped!

Hi Beth, hope you take it easy even though It's a busy time!

I already told the story how the buyer fell in love with the drawer knobs in our kitchen..:)

That's what she told me-overseas it's a bit different all this buying and selling..you usually are present during showings, and you do see your buyers/sellers during signing agreements etc( lawyer present)

So this young lady told me "You know why I decided to buy your place? I really liked the knobs in the kitchen!". She told me that when we were already in the process of giving our keys. So funny

But knobs are at least attached..:)

Also..it's a starter condo..that mirrors fifty of other starter condos on the market, pretty closely..how do you choose? they all are relatively new, the location is nice..things are being built already, neighborhood takes a shape, flowers bloom, the preschool happens to have a great rep, it's more or less where they wanted to be..now how do you choose? you obviously have to feel some connection..to something that differs. Even if it's knobs..lol.

(she really asked us to leave our dining table but here, I said "no". It was a good table..even though kids during a birthday party managed to knock off some birthday candles, and it had this burnt mark since. Which I pointed out to her but she said "It's okay"

The table is alive and well btw..my ex still has it. We took the table everywhere with us..so now it lives 10 min drive from me.)

Beth, congrats again..and I hope you feel better very soon!

CONGRATS!! I can see why they asked for the lamps and I actually don't think it's odd to ask a seller to leave certain items. They fell in love with them like you did. :)

Well, we're not leaving the lamps--they're packed and in the garage waiting for the movers to come load the truck tomorrow! We have left the garage and basement shelves they requested (which cost at least $900 to replace).

We did our pre-close signatures today--closing will probably be Wednesday or Thursday instead of the scheduled Tuesday (issues at their end, not ours).

Our agent told us that he just got a call this week from the other buyers who were interested to ask if he thought it would close. They were going to offer about 5% less than we listed it for, and they asked him how much it went for. He told them "close to list" :-)

The other houses in our subdivision are still on the market--but they all went way beyond what the comps could possibly support (which I understand because I know what they paid in 2006, but that's not really a factor in what someone will pay in 2017, unfortunately)

Once we get settled and unpacked in our rental, we'll start the process of finalizing things for our build!

(For those following that, the re-zoning and annexation went fine. The entire board was like "Welcome to <our town>!--and tell your friends!" We didn't expect any issues--taking a half acre plus lot that close in and building a single family residence is exactly what the neighbors would have hoped for. Only one neighbor came to the advertised hearings, where they would have been free to object--and that was just to say hello and introduce herself.)

Update--the closing is delayed a week due to VA mortgage paperwork--they are cleared to close and the closing date is Tuesday. I feel a bit sorry for them that they didn't have Memorial Day weekend to move, which I'm sure they were planning on. I'm told that they are out of their previous home and are paying the moving company a per diem to keep their belongings until close. I'm trying not to worry about whether it'll close--we all know it's not over 'til it's over!

Final update: the house closed this morning!!!

There was only one little snag--I'd written the check for the roofing repair to the wrong company name. (Not sure where the misinformation happened). Our agent wrote a personal check at closing, and I have one addressed to mail to him to reimburse him.

All done!

Next step: personalize our rental, where we'll be for our year (see Organizing the Home forum)

Find an architect to do construction drawings for us!

Congrats! Well done, enjoy the next phase..(:

Yeah!