A Moving Diary: Lessons From Selling My Home

Having spent seven years and one especially brutal winter in New England (even in July there was a patch of snow still melting in Boston), my husband and I decided to make the move back to California, to be closer to my family roots and our old friends. But first things first: We needed to sell our home. It’s a cute 1930s bungalow in a charming neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island, walking distance to the farmer’s market, running path, shops and restaurants, and — in what was by all accounts a seller’s market — we were sure it would be a snap to sell. But starting with meeting the real estate agents on Day 1, the selling process proved to be a roller coaster ride.

Day 1: A mile-long to-do list that starts with ‘new roof’

We know we need a new roof even before meeting with our real estate agents, but some small part of my brain is holding on to the hope that we won’t really need to get it done before selling. That hope is dashed in the first five minutes of our sit-down, when both agents heartily agree that we need a new roof — before listing. The roof is one of the first things buyers notice when driving by a property, and one that looks a bit worse for wear can turn people off before they even think about going inside. As a friend points out, picking out new kitchen finishes or paint colors may be fun, but choosing a new roof is just a drag.

We do a walk-through of the house, notepad and pen in hand, and I come away with a page crammed full of to-dos. Most are minor fixes, but still, to see it all listed in one place makes my head swim. Oh yes, and our timetable is set: To be in on the prime selling season, we need to have everything done (roof included) in three weeks.


Day 7: Selling a house is not for wimps

I expected a certain amount of stress to come with the territory, but stress is only the beginning. From the emotional impact of letting go of a home we’ve spent six years of our life in to the physical effort of moving furniture, painting, cleaning and hauling away junk, selling a house is a whole body and mind proposition. One week in and we have landscaped the front yard, taken five carloads of donation items to the Salvation Army, painted two rooms and touched up paint in the rest, steam-cleaned carpets, hired roofers and a handyman and ordered some new decor for staging. By the end of the first week, my entire body hurts.


Day 14: Young child + white couch = eek!

As part of my staging plan (I ran my ideas past our real estate agent and implemented them myself) I want to give our brown sofa a new lease on life with a fresh white slipcover. The lovely ladies at Kreatelier, a shop in the neighborhood, take on the project and have it finished in record time. With a pair of sunny yellow pillows and clear acrylic coffee table (favorite of stagers the world over), the white sofa lightens up the entire living area. The only problem: a certain 4 1/2-year-old boy whose favorite activities all involve some combination of dirt, water and mud. In normal circumstances, I wouldn’t mind a little dirt on the couch — but selling a house is decidedly not normal, so I keep the whole thing covered with a blanket between showings.


Day 17: The inconvenient truths of staging

As someone who loves uncluttered spaces, it surprises me how much stuff I still have to remove, give away and hide when it comes time to stage the house. In the kitchen, all but a few wooden spoons are left on the counters — which means that every time I want toast I have to lug out the toaster and plug it back in. Other practical items hidden in the recesses of our closets in the name of staging include: the family wall calendar, dish drying rack, tea towels, toothbrushes, bills, shoes, coffee beans and most of my son’s toys. Also: I buy a stack of fluffy white towels to stage the bathroom and (much to the consternation of my husband and son) insist we not use them. Instead I pull them out of hiding just before each showing and stuff our “real” towels away in a basket.

Clutter Clearing 101


Day 21: No bacon

No fish, curry or tacos, either. Our first open house is coming up next week (not to mention some early showings scheduled before that), and I’ve just realized we have to start considering how our house smells.

Day 22: Kitchen workspaces are in

Lucky me! I was planning to swap out the desk in our kitchen for a breakfast bar, thinking it would make the space more appealing, but my agent tells me people love having a little desk in the kitchen. Instead of spending money on a breakfast bar and stools, I clear off my desk and take my family out to dinner. Bonus: no messing up the perfectly staged kitchen.


Day 23: The right cleaning products can be pretty amazing

Normally, I go for gentle, natural products (think Mrs. Meyers or white vinegar), but when prepping our house for its first showings, I decide to give some harder-core cleaning products a try. The best of the bunch (in my totally unscientific and personal opinion) included the Magic Eraser for wall marks, Magic Eraser bathroom scrubber for removing soap scum and making faucets gleam, Swiffer dusters for cleaning moldings and blinds, and good old Windex for shining up the mirrors and windows. I won’t be giving up my favorite natural cleaners anytime soon, but I am happily keeping these tools in my kit for special occasions.

Day 23, afternoon: If you ignore the floor wax directions that say not to walk on floors for 20 minutes after use, you will regret it. Ten minutes into using a liquid floor wax product to shine up our old hardwood floors, I wonder why on earth we’ve never done it before. They look so clean and shiny they positively glow! About three quarters of the way through the house, I get to my son’s bedroom and accidentally set the bottle of wax just out of reach as I mop myself farther away from it. I think, I’ll just take one tiny step and grab it …

I barely put a toe down and slip, cartoon-style, into the air, knocking the bottle of wax over, landing on my back and coating my outfit in strong-smelling, probably highly flammable, floor wax.

How to Clean Your Hardwood Floors


Day 25: Photo-ready

Since so many buyers now get their first glimpse of a house online, good photos should be a top priority. On photo day, I make one last sweep of the house for personal items (right down to the shampoo in the shower) and clutter, turn on every light and open all the window shades. And the floors are still super shiny — hooray!

Day 26: Hello house, it’s me, Laura

Like so much of the world, I am utterly captivated by Marie Kondo’s little clutter-clearing book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. In her book, Kondo shares that she begins each tidying session by directly addressing the house. I decide to give it a whirl. Why not? Alone in the house, I kneel down in the center of our living room and start talking. It’s not as awkward as I thought it would be — I thank the house for taking such good care of us, and promise to do what we can to help find wonderful new owners who will appreciate it as much as we have.

Read more about Kondo’s tidying philosophy


Day 27: Bidding war

Our house photos go “live” on the website around noon, and our real estate agent has showings lined up the rest of the day. I vacate the house so she can come and go freely. We’re excited but not really expecting anything to happen until our open house on Sunday — so it comes as a shock when offers start rolling in just hours after the house is shown. By the end of the evening, we have three competing offers.

Our agent sets a 9 p.m. deadline: Each potential buyer will bring their best offer, and we can choose one. We accept a cash offer for $6,000 over the asking price. We are over the moon.


Day 40: Back to square one

Some old knob and tube wiring is found during the inspection, along with several more minor issues. We would be more than happy to work with the seller to fix the issues or come down in price, but we don’t get the chance — the buyer’s father (who we later learn is the one putting up the cash for the sale) has a very negative phone conversation with our agents, who are baffled when he attempts to come down $40,000 in price (for inspection items that should cost only a few thousand) and refuses to budge. The buyer formally withdraws the offer in the morning, on the last day of the contract. We will never know whether this was a hard-bargaining tactic gone wrong or if the buyer was simply looking for a way to get out of buying the house. Either way, we are heartbroken.


Day 45: The ‘stigma’ of a dropped sale

After a few days to recover from the shock of losing our buyer, our house is officially going back on the market. It seems utterly unfair, but our real estate agents tell us we are unlikely to get the same kind of offers the second time around — even though the first time around was only two weeks ago. We quickly schedule electrical (and other) repair work to fix issues that came up in the first inspection and hope the next buyer will stick. Two doors down the street, our neighbors also have their house on the market, but they haven’t gotten a single bite, which is disheartening.

Day 48: Another cash offer

The first full day back on the market, we get a cash offer — it’s a little below asking price but not much, and after some deliberation we take it. I know I should feel grateful to have another buyer so soon, but the roller-coaster-like experience has been wearing me down, and I just want to be done with it all. I get word from the neighbors that they still have no offers — they’ve decided to get a new roof and lower the price.


Day 56: It’s not over till it’s over

Is the buyer really being as picky as I think, or am I so tired of this process that I can no longer think clearly? I’ve had enough of electricians, roofers, contractors, chimney sweeps, buyers, inspectors, appraisers and real estate agents tramping through my house. I’m over the laundry list of items we have been asked to fix, including changing a light bulb (really). When will it end?

Day 79: Closing time

“You know that little book you had sitting out? The tidying book?” the buyer says, referring to The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. Yes, I nod, and she says, “I love that book!”

It’s 7:45 a.m. on my son’s fifth birthday, and his plastic T. rex is making a threatening face at the lawyer sitting across the table from us. As the sellers, we need to sign only a few documents (10 minutes, tops!) and then we’re free to go, so we brought the kiddo and promised chocolate chip pancakes afterward. Forty-five minutes later, my infinitely patient, diplomatic husband is still calmly addressing the buyer’s lingering questions and concerns while I, since I can think of nothing nice to say, try to follow my mother’s advice and not say anything at all.

Before closing, we were afraid we would feel a sense of loss at the finality of saying goodbye to our house, but instead we both walk out of the office feeling incredibly light. And, in a twist of fate, our neighbors (who did find a buyer in the end) are also moving to California — just not down the street from us.

Day (Stopped Counting)

It has to be one of the most common complaints of home sellers far and wide: Why, oh why, didn’t we make all of those lovely improvements earlier — you know, when we could have actually enjoyed them? The next time we dive into home ownership, I vow to do what I can to avoid that trap, and make our home a place we love from the get-go.

Have you sold a house recently? What was the one lesson from it you will never forget?

More:
10 Best Ways to Get Organized for a Big Move
Relocating? Here’s How to Make the Big Move Better

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