Moving Along

After we spent the better part of three months (and a good chunk of change) doing a lot of work to our house to get it ready to sell, the big question is…

Was it worth the work?

In a nutshell, I would say yes, it was worth the amount of work we put into it.

In total, we got fourteen showings on our house – a little over one per day.  We sold our home for our full asking price, in ten days.  (We actually got another offer on the first day, but rejected it – more on that later.)  The buyers agreed to close in mid-June and allow us to rent it back until the end of June, which allowed us more time to make the transition to our new home.  I’m not sure if you could ask for much better!

The people who bought our house chose it because they wanted something like-new but without the hassle that often comes along with building a new house (paying for upgrades, installing landscaping, etc.).  Our house fit the bill, so while we were at the top of our price range for our particular square footage, the upgrades helped overcome the fact that we weren’t the best bargain in the neighborhood.

Was it worth the money?

Well, this one’s a bit trickier.  Overall, I would absolutely say that the amount of money we spent more than paid for itself not just in the fast sale, but also in the selling price.

However, we didn’t exactly rake in a huge profit on the deal.  We were grateful to get a very small check (less than $500) at the closing table, and we sold the house for less than we paid for it seven years ago.  However, had we not invested the money into the upgrades, we would have been bringing a check to the closing table anyway, for far more than we put into the improvements over the past few months.

So, yes, it was worth the money, and overall it ended up better than it would have been if we hadn’t done the improvements – though it might have been nice to get a bigger check, of course! :)  That’s hard to do when you buy during the boom and sell during the bust, but it was the optimal time for us to move, with interest rates still low but housing prices going up (and interest rates going up, too).

Were particular upgrades worth more than others?

It’s hard to say what particular upgrades were worth it and which ones didn’t make a difference.  Big ones like the wood floors were huge, yes, but did the $20 spent on new house numbers really make that much of an impact?  What about the new light on the back patio, or the pre-inspection?

Jeremy always encourages his clients to just look at the overall picture instead of stressing over whether $10 spent here or there will really matter, and I totally get that – at least, now I do.  At first, I didn’t completely understand why he wanted everything to be completely new and fresh-looking – after all, we’ve taken care of our house well and it was very clean.  Who cares if the steps to the basement have a new coat of paint?!

But as we got into it and started getting feedback from buyers and their agents, I started realizing that the upgrades made our house compelling.  We could have skipped the time and money to put in the upgrades, but then we would have been just another house at $200,000 in Stetson Hills.  It seems doubtful that we would have been able to receive an offer with the conditions we wanted (particularly as far as closing and possession dates) if we were just another house.  But, because there wasn’t really another house like it, it gave us a competitive edge.  The people who bought our house really wanted our house, and couldn’t find anything else like it.  That right there means the time and money were well-spent and overall, netted us more.

Note: as a Realtor’s wife, I feel compelled to mention that every house is different, and you shouldn’t take our list of upgrades and assume that’s what you should to do your house to sell it for top dollar. :)  Some of the things we did would never have been profitable if we’d had to pay someone else to do it, and there are always upgrades that are a good idea for certain price ranges but not necessary for others.

It’s SOLD!

We are praising the Lord for selling our home at the price we hoped for and with the timing we requested.  It has been very clear that God has been putting all the pieces together throughout this process, and I am thankful.

I’ll share more about how the whole home selling and buying process went down soon – but, we haven’t yet been able to close on our purchase because we have to wait for the Black Forest Fire to be 100% contained before we can close, so that will have to come later.

If you are looking for a home in Colorado Springs, or getting ready to sell yours, I’m going to just tell you: you need to talk to my husband, Jeremy. :)  Allow me to brag on him: a recent client that Jeremy just helped sell their home and buy a new one told me something to the effect of “this is the fourth home I’ve purchased and this is the first Realtor that I felt like actually worked for me and didn’t just collect a check at closing.”  He really does work hard to serve his clients on both the sale and purchase of a home, and I’m constantly amazed at how hard he works to make things come together smoothly.  (An example would be our own purchase, but I can’t talk about that until it’s closed.)

Anyway, if you need a Realtor in the Colorado Springs/Monument/Black Forest area – he’s your man. ;)  (No, he’s my man; but he can be your Realtor!)

We listed our home for sale this spring. My husband, Jeremy, is a local Realtor and has a list of projects for us to do to help our house sell for top dollar, which I’ve been chronicling along the way in this “Moving Along” series.

As of yesterday at 10 AM, we no longer own a home!

The closing on our current home was Tuesday, and we are thanking the Lord for a smooth transaction, a great price, and ideal timing – we received a full-price offer after just over a week on the market; and the buyers agreed to close in mid-June and allow us to rent the house back to them through the end of June so that we could close on our home purchase and have time to fix it up a little bit before moving in.

However, we can’t close on our new home until the fire is 100% contained (because our new home is in an area close to the fire zone), so we are really grateful to be able to have a few more days in our current house, even if it is putting our remodeling schedule woefully behind.  We are hoping they get it contained by Thursday so that we can close on Friday, but only God knows for sure when that will happen.  It has been very clear that He has been orchestrating everything in this situation, and while I personally would prefer to have all of my ducks in a row all of the time, I’m learning some good lessons about trusting in God and His plan through this situation. :)

I’ll share more about the whole process of selling and then buying soon – but right now, I’m a little busy twiddling my thumbs while we wait to move!  (That’s an ironic statement, I know, but it’s kind of how I feel right now!)

We are listing our home for sale this summer and moving to a new one (still in the Springs) this summer, God-willing. My husband, Jeremy, is a local Realtor and has a list of projects for us to do to help our house sell for top dollar.   It went on the market last Thursday, after we spend a few months doing a bunch of stuff to get it ready to sell.  You can read all of the “Moving Along” updates here.

This past weekend was absolutely fantastic:

God brought a buyer and our house is under contract!  I will share more about how it went down in a few weeks, probably after we’ve closed in late June.  For now, we are elated to have a contract and so thankful that we were able to work out the dates so that we are able to do some much-needed renovations to our new house before we move in.

A couple of friends have asked me if I’m relieved to not have to have the house ready for showings, and honestly, the showings weren’t that big of a deal.  I think I was more stressed with trying to get all of the projects done beforehand, and now with making sure the house is still in mint condition since it doesn’t really belong to us anymore (it does until closing, but you know what I mean!)  I’m afraid the kids are going to scratch the floor or dent the wall or color with crayon on something that a Magic Eraser won’t take care of! :)  Granted, we only had a week’s worth of showings (about fifteen total) so that process was relatively short and painless compared to all of the other work we’ve been doing.

Plus, it was actually really nice to have a clean house all of the time, so I am hoping to transition that into a manageable habit.  We have so little “stuff” out right now that it doesn’t take long at all to get it all cleaned up!

Anyway, I’ll write more about various aspects of the process of both buying and selling at some point but I’ll have to wait to share some stuff until the contracts are a done deal.  For now, we are going to relax for awhile (as much as Jeremy can during the busiest time of the year) and enjoy the house that we just finished making practically-new while we wait to close on our “money pit” that will be a work in progress for awhile! :)

We are listing our home for sale this summer and moving to a new one (still in the Springs) this summer, God-willing. My husband, Jeremy, is a local Realtor and has a list of projects for us to do to help our house sell for top dollar.   Here’s an update on what we’ve done in the past week; read all of the updates here.

It’s finally done (OK, mostly – we still have a little bit of exterior paint left) – our home’s status is officially for sale!  You can view the home showcase website with photos and video here.  Know someone that’s looking for a house in this price range?  I’d love to have you share the info with them!

Now, we have a showing in a little while so I need to get the house looking a little more like it does in the photos, haha.  If only it stayed that way for longer than ten minutes…

We are listing our home for sale (THIS WEEK!) and moving to a new one (still in the Springs) this summer, God-willing. My husband, Jeremy, is a local Realtor and has a list of projects for us to do to help our house sell for top dollar.   Here’s an update on what we’ve done in the past week; read all of the updates here.

Part of the package that Jeremy offers to his clients is a professional home stager, and we had our own appointment with the stager last week.  Now, it might seem sort of silly for a real estate agent to pay for a stager for his own house, since he knows what looks good and what doesn’t (at least as far as selling a house ;).  But, I have to say, we both found that it was great to get a neutral perspective on our own home!

When you live in your house, you get used to things the way you like them and think that they look great – but they don’t always look that great to everyone else, especially when you are trying to market your home to a wide variety of people with different needs and desires.  Now, if we could find a buyer who is exactly like us and has exactly all the same stuff, we could do nothing to our house and it would look good to them,  but that scenario doesn’t have a high odds of happening.

So, we went through our house with the stager and she suggested lots of things to help the house both show well and photograph well.  Jeremy puts a lot of emphasis on making homes look good online (which means having great pictures and video) since 90% of people see the house online before they decide to see it in person.  So the staging is not just for actually showing the house, but equally for the pictures.

One of the big things we did as a result of the stager’s recommendations was to rearrange the living room.  That not only made the flow of the house work better, it also opened up the dining room so that it’s now way bigger than we ever thought!  She also had some good suggestions on arranging the storage boxes that we have in the basement in such a way that people can actually see how the basement flows.

(Typically, the stager gives a lot of recommendations to fix things that are broken and decluttering rooms and closets, but we “cheated” and got that mostly done ahead of time since we knew it needed to be done.  There are still a couple of closets that need some attention, though!)

A lot of what she recommended was adding some visual interest by way of pops of color through accessories.  We tend towards pretty neutral color schemes which is great as far as paint but doesn’t give a room much pizzazz.  So, I bought a colorful pillow for our master bedroom; a colorful pot, fern, and decorative plate for the kitchen; a colorful rug for the door to the garage, some colorful accessories for the ottoman… Get the theme?  Just add some color, Carrie! :)

I was perhaps a bit celebratory when she recommended adding hardware to the kitchen cabinets.  It had been a bit of an ongoing discussion between Jeremy and I – he didn’t really think it needed it but when it became two against one, he was powerless to resist. :)  Cabinet hardware is expensive which is part of we hadn’t done it, but we found this hardware at Home Depot and it cost us about $50 to do the whole kitchen (they are $1.68 per pull when you buy them in a six-pack).  I don’t know why those particular ones are so much cheaper, but they worked for us and the kitchen looks more “finished” so I like the upgrade.

Even though we did need to purchase some items, the stager did a great job of using what we already had as much as possible, so I didn’t have to redecorate the house.  We moved some pictures from the hallway to the living room, a canvas in the living room to the boy’s room, switch flowers/plants in the master bedroom and bathroom, and brought out some cookbooks that I already had.

We ended up doing most of what she recommended.   There were a few items that were on my list to buy that I just couldn’t find anything that worked well, so I ended up skipping over those items because I didn’t want to spend money on something that was OK-but-not-great.

Pictures and video got done on Monday and Tuesday – we are just a day or two until the official status is For Sale!   I’ll point you to the home showcase website when it’s live so you can see the pictures and video – list price is $216,900 and we are even offering to pay up to $4,000 in buyer closing costs!

PS – If you are thinking about selling your home even in next year or two, don’t think that it’s too early to talk to my husband, Jeremy, about the things you might want to do to sell your house for the maximum possible!  He frequently talks to people that are a year or two out from selling, but want to know what types of things they can improve now to help when they sell (and then you still get awhile to enjoy it yourself, too!).  You can call or text him at 719.231.9043, email jeremy@thecircagroup.com, or visit his website to find out more.

We are listing our home for sale (THIS WEEK!) and moving to a new one (still in the Springs) this summer, God-willing. My husband, Jeremy, is a local Realtor and has a list of projects for us to do to help our house sell for top dollar.   Here’s an update on what we’ve done in the past week; read all of the updates here.

We did a pre-inspection last week, which is a full home inspection like you’d do when you purchase a home, but in this case, we did it before we sold the home.  The buyer will receive the full inspection report and can still do their own inspection, but if they don’t want to, they can save a few bucks.  (We had the home inspector that Jeremy recommends to his clients do an inspection, so it was a full, official inspection by a certified inspector.)

As we hoped, there wasn’t much on the inspection report – since Jeremy attends his clients’ inspections, he has a pretty good idea of things to look for so we tried to take care of as many of those as we could ahead of time.  One big thing that we didn’t know about was that our garbage disposal was leaking, so we replaced that post-inspection.  There were a few other things, like servicing the furnace (comes up on almost every inspection since you are supposed to have it done yearly) and fixing a window mechanism that had broken.  (We’ve been trying to fix the thing for forever but couldn’t find the part.   The inspector recommended a window repair guy and he was able to fix it – yay, finally!)

We worked on the exterior paint this weekend – it’s done except for one side, but it’s a side that won’t show in pictures or video so we are going to take care of it later this week, before it’s listed but after the photographer and videographer are here.  You can see the difference in the in-progress picture above – the top part is where it’s faded and the bottom part is where we’ve painted over it.  We’ll see if it was worth the time invested, but it cost us about $300 in paint and supplies to do it ourselves versus thousands for hiring it out so it was definitely a win from a money standpoint.  (This was a project that wasn’t even on our list until we painted the really-faded back side of the house and realized that it wouldn’t be that hard to do the rest of it, too.)

There were lots of little things that got done this past week, too: I cleaned the outdoor light fixtures (Think you need new ones?  Just try cleaning the old ones.), added mulch to the flower bed and trees, filled in some rock, added cabinet hardware in the kitchen, fixed window blinds, etc.

Oh, if you need the knobs and doohickeys for blinds, FixMyBlinds.com is an online retailer that is actually based in the Springs, and you can go in and tell them what you want.  It was super cheap (like a couple of dollars) to get some new pulls and string!  Jeremy said it would definitely be easiest to go to their site and figure out the numbers of what you want so that you can just go in and tell them you need such-and-such.  They don’t really have a “showroom” so it’s easiest if you know exactly what you want.

Our house goes on the market this week so we are really in crunch time now!  We have a contract on a house to purchase so I am itching to move on from this house to the new one.  We don’t have to sell our current home to close on the new one, but we’d like to, so we have a couple of months to get this one sold before we close on the new house.  It’s craziness around here! :)

PS – If you are thinking about selling your home even in next year or two, don’t think that it’s too early to talk to my husband, Jeremy, about the things you might want to do to sell your house for the maximum possible!  He frequently talks to people that are a year or two out from selling, but want to know what types of things they can improve now to help when they sell (and then you still get awhile to enjoy it yourself, too!).  You can call or text him at 719.231.9043, email jeremy@thecircagroup.com, or visit his website to find out more.

We are planning on selling our home (May 1st is the target date!) and moving to a new one (still in the Springs) this summer, God-willing. My husband, Jeremy, is a local Realtor and has a list of projects for us to do to help our house sell for top dollar.   Here’s an update on what we’ve done in the past week; read all of the updates here.

It’s crunch time: we’re about a week away from our appointment with Jeremy’s real estate photographer and videographer, and a week and a half from it going on the market, and that means we need to get stuff done.  And, thankfully, we are!  We aren’t quite done with everything, but we are close enough to being done with inside projects that the mess of caulking tubes, paint cans, paintbrushes, screwdrivers, hole putty, etc. is off my kitchen counter.

Our engineered maple hardwood floors finally came in last week and we got them installed over the weekend after living like this for a couple of days:

Let me tell you, trying to keep five kids off the foam underlayment and plywood flooring for two days was tons of fun.

Jeremy took up part of the carpet and pad late one night after I was sleeping and it sounds like I missed the fun part.  He said the amount of dirt that had sunk through the carpet and pad in the high-traffic areas was incredible.  Based on the amount of dirt that I swept up when I helped removed the carpet and pad from non-high traffic areas, I shudder to think about how nasty the high-traffic areas were.  Definitely made us think twice about ever installing carpet again.  (Jeremy sometimes comments that he sees 100-year-old hardwoods in houses fairly often – but never 100-year-old carpet!)

The floors were pretty easy to install – I think the hardest part was going around the floor vents, but Jeremy got that figured out without too many issues.  We had already ripped out the baseboards because we upgraded the trim in the main level, and that definitely made the floor installation job easier.

We are really pleased with how it looks and feels!  The floors are engineered hardwood and look like real wood – which was key both for our personal preference and resale value.  I wish we’d been able to do it last summer as we planned, but we ended up spending the floor money on air conditioning and in hindsight, it was a good decision because the air conditioner made our summer a whole lot more productive!

I’m just super happy to have the living and dining areas done after living with them in a partially-finished state for a year.  Last winter, we out a dumb half wall and put carpet scraps over the place where we’d taken it out.  It is so nice to have it looking finished again!

I did some cleaning last week, like the vents:

I also did some wiping of surfaces in our unfinished basement.  I wiped down the furnace, plumbing pipes, and the top of the water heater.  I have no expectation that anyone will say “wow, that’s a clean water heater!” but it just contributes to the overall clean, polished feeling.

I also scrubbed some overspray of the knockdown wall texture that had landed on the basement’s cement floor.  (The stuff they spray on is water-soluble so you can just scrub it off.)  Again, nothing anyone will really notice but it should help the house stand out as clean.

There was lots more little stuff done in the past week, too – fixing of the bathroom light fixture that had a loose shade, brighter halogen lightbulbs in the bathrooms (I love them so much I will be doing it in the new house!), washing of the inside and outside windows, etc.  I am in love with the squeegee we borrowed from the mother-in-law – it’s amazing how great windows look when they are cleaned inside and out and the squeegee made it so much easier.

I’ll have another update in a day or two – we had our home pre-inspection and appointment with the home stager yesterday, so I’ll share why we did that and what we’re doing as a result soon.

PS – If you are thinking about selling your home even in next year or two, don’t think that it’s too early to talk to my husband, Jeremy, about the things you might want to do to sell your house for the maximum possible!  He frequently talks to people that are a year or two out from selling, but want to know what types of things they can improve now to help when they sell (and then you still get awhile to enjoy it yourself, too!).  You can call or text him at 719.231.9043, email jeremy@thecircagroup.com, or visit his website to find out more.