selling house, any advice?

[dirty]

i'm sighing listing papers on 25th of feb. this is my first house. anybody have any advice? i'll be moving back to the midwest.

[Kathy]

Where are you now dirty??

All I know about selling a house is you are supposed to get the most money if the house has something called 'curb appeal'. I watch too many home improvement shows.
Curb Appeal would be:
A clean yard and a front door/entry area that's welcoming. The realtor that was on one of the shows said a fresh coat of paint on a door can increase the price someone will pay by $1000! I guess people see a neat, tidy entry and their opinion of the whole place goes up.

Oh, he also said; Interior paint should be in neutral tones. And a homey touch is having a pan of spices such as cinnamon sticks simmering in water on the stove.

I don't know if those helped or if that's what you were asking but that's the parts I remember him talking about.

Good Luck in your move-the midwest is a great place!

Kathy

[bergere]

Stage your house. Remove most all personal items.
Keep it very neat, stream lined and clean.
Make sure there are no marks on the walls or on the rugs.
Make sure the closets are clean,,removing most all personal stuff. This way the buyers can invision putting their stuff in there.
Say for the kitchen,, make sure there is nothing on the counters. Except maybe fresh baked cookies done just before buyers come to look.
Fresh towels and maybe a couple candles in the bath room.
If you have been to nice furnture stores,, you know how well they can stage the rooms so folks are more likely to buy. That is what you would want to do.
If you have a fireplace, clean it out well,, and find the most pretty, clean logs to put in it. Three is a good number, two on the bottom and one on top. That way it makes it inviting to folks.

When we sold our house in Oct 04.. it was a lot of work to get most all the personal stuff moved out. Believe me it was well worth it. We left(until the buyers bought the house, then had them moved too) the sofa, chairs, dinner room table and the like..have Amish furnture. Having my Spinning wheel staged....moved my rooster statue to another area...just made it appealing to buyers as best I could.

Like Kathy said,, a neat yard will also be a big help.
We had a Orchard with 18 fruit trees, grape vines, Kitchen and herb gardens,, a dry stone wall hubby built. Because DH was working in another state I got help from friends because there was no way I could do all myself.

All that work paid off... we sold the house in 12 days.

Wishing you the best of luck with selling your house!!

[dirty]

i was dreading someone asking where i lived, knowing how people feel about californians. i moved here 13yrs ago. i just wasn't making it back in mn. i heard construction paid good in ca. so i packed everything i owned into a rusted out 71 chevelle and left mn. the first few years were rough. perseverance slowly paid off. 7 years ago i bought this 80 yr old fixer upper on 2 acres. i completely gutted it. now it's fixed. as for curb appeal, i have an 7 foot tall industrial drill press from the 1900's for my mailbox stand. i have painted large designs and murals on my outbuidings, i made a 15 foot wooden water tower, with a sink under it for cleaning veggies, for the northside of the30x60 garden . when i put in the garden fence posts, i capped them with old garden tool heads. a friend told me they looked like head stones for a bunch of gardeners. yes i do stickout in california. it's been hard work and a little fun. but now it's time to leave.

[Kathy]

dirty said:

i was dreading someone asking where i lived, knowing how people feel about californians. i moved here 13yrs ago. i just wasn't making it back in mn. i heard construction paid good in ca. so i packed everything i owned into a rusted out 71 chevelle and left mn. the first few years were rough. perseverance slowly paid off. 7 years ago i bought this 80 yr old fixer upper on 2 acres. i completely gutted it. now it's fixed. as for curb appeal, i have an 7 foot tall industrial drill press from the 1900's for my mailbox stand. i have painted large designs and murals on my outbuidings, i made a 15 foot wooden water tower, with a sink under it for cleaning veggies, for the northside of the30x60 garden . when i put in the garden fence posts, i capped them with old garden tool heads. a friend told me they looked like head stones for a bunch of gardeners. yes i do stickout in california. it's been hard work and a little fun. but now it's time to leave.

Dirty, we left IN for a move to CA in 1980. Two country folks in a 1976 Ford Pinto outfitted with a car top carrier & a 2yr old baby in tow-pulling into Los Angeles. Now that was quite a sight!! ;D

I know how it is to go where the promise & hopes of a brighter future & career is-so don't feel bad. We did it too!
We moved out of CA in 1983 and moved to WI just across the river from the metro St. Paul, MN area.
So our reasons and routes are fairly similar.

Bergere has some great suggestions and your place sounds like it's unique and that does sell in an area of cookie cutter housing.

Best of Luck.
Kathy

[dirty]

thanks kathy and bergere. i'm planning on moving to mn, wi or the if i'm feeling really adventurous the up. i feel much more confident about moving back than i felt coming here. i haven't told anybody at work that i'm going to move. but i'm trying to work less overtime. so i can get and keep this place shined up. how did you deal with your possessions. i'm thinking of selling everything or giving it away. cost wise it just seems like the thing to do. all i really need is one of my trucks, my dog and some tools. the only thing i'll miss will be my horse " tisha". that will be the tearjerker.

[dlangland]

Dirty, I have lived in various parts of the midwest all my years...You will love it and the people up here. Good luck to you. Deb

[Deleted]

Dirty where in MN are you looking? I live north of Bemidji.

My only advise for selling a house is don't spend a lot of money painting or anything like that. Just get it clean and strip it of just about everything else but the bare min. of furnature. If you know there will be a showing bake a loaf of bread. Just get that store bought dough and cook it even if you just feed it to the birds.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes for you.

[dirty]

marchwind, the only plan i have is staying with different relatives near mpls. and milwaukee. short stays i don't want to wearout my welcome. i belong to the operating engineers union, so i'll be transferring to local #49 in mn.. from there i'll get on the out-of-work list and go from there. i guess now that i've written this i realize it's not a plan so much as a general direction(metaphorically) of were i'm headed. so much depends on things i can't control that concrete plans would never hold up.

[dirty]

well the for sale sign goes up tuesday. it's offical i'm now one frazzeled nerve from a straightjacket. i'm trying to prepare to physically move soon, and mentally preparing for the house not to sell quickly. the worst part is i've tried writting down reasons to stay or move. it appears staying would be the thing to do. i've just got this ever growing feeling that i need to leave. i wish i could expain it better. that would definetly help ease my mind.

[dlangland]

I know that feeling, Dirty, and went thru the same thing myself....Stay...Go...Stay..Go. Moving is very stressful, there is no doubt about. I hope everything works out fine for you. Deb

[dirty]

i'm sorry but i'm gong to hijack this thread for my own selfish reasons. i was posting on moongazers thread 'rough day' which made me think. the thing that scares the daylights out of me about moving across the country, is giving up my job. i think i should be doing something else for a living. but the reality is i'm not good at anything else . i think moving may force me to do things i'd like to do, but don't because of the feeling of safety i get from my job .

[dirty]

i'm going nuts. ever since i put my house for sale, it's been raining on and off. so i've only worked 2 day in the last two weeks. i should be thankful, i've wiped out my todo list. but i stopped being thankful after 8 or 9 days off. now i'm just bouncing off the walls.

[dirty]

i signed an offer friday night. can you believe, nothing for 2 months. then three offers in 48 hours. two at full price. now i hold my breath for 47 more days(closing day). the price was just under 5 times what i paid for the house 7 years ago . i didn't believe anybody would pay it, when my realtor suggested the price. i guess i really have to move now .

[auntieemu]

Yes, normally when someone buys a house the expect the previous owner to move out.