Gavin will be coming home at the end of winter and it’s time to put our house on the market. We have bought and sold 3 properties in the last five years so I am a bit of a veteran, but it never gets easier.
1. You have to let cretins into your private space and act welcoming and friendly. Some potential buyers are great. They look around, make their judgments, keep those judgments to themselves to themselves, and leave.
Others, the cretins, point out every flaw stridently, and dart meaningful glances at each other and the agent. If you don’t like my shocking pink stairs repaint them WHEN you buy my house.
Don’t let the first question out of your mouth be a chirpy “so, why are you selling this beautiful house?” when it’s obvious you’ve read Real Estate for Dummies and expect me to say, “oh, we are desperate for money and would love you to make any offer, no matter how low.” Not going to happen.
2. Dealing with estate agents. I won’t even go into the usual obvious top 10 reasons to hate realtors, those you already know. I will just mention photographs. They wander around with their tiny digital cameras, pointing and shooting, and then publish blurry, out of focus and unflattering pics. After the agents selling my last house published a big pic of my toilet on-line, I now do all my own photos.
3. Keeping a house buyer ready while living in it with two kids. One or two agents have made the mistake of doing the ‘pop in’ – something they’ve never done twice. When agents unexpectedly rang the doorbell once on a Monday morning at 8.30 am I actually dropped to the floor and hid behind the couch until they went away. I NEVER give them keys.
4. Handing my beloved garden over to someone who thinks indigenous is another word for indigent. The same cretin staring at me as if I’m a nutter when I rave on about the delights of having four huge rain water tanks.
Losing my menagerie of tortoises and guinea fowl. Especially, those fair weathered fowls who are your best friend when you are chucking daily seed for them, but who completely forget you five minutes are the moving van has pulled out of the driveway.
5. Regularly packing all my treasures into boxes, half of which never seem to see the light of day again. I wake at 3am remembering great pieces that I know I put somewhere safe and which I haven’t seen for 5 years. It bothers me.
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