help with some moving issues.

[bcky2]

i know that we have gone over moving a few times here but i still would enjoy any help that can be given. we are looking to move and are just so lost. first of all, do people usually sell their house befor putting a bid on a new one or the other way around. our realtor says to find a house first would be nice but our mortgage broker says to sell ours first then make an offer. we are looking at areas about 2 hours from our house so its not like we get to go out looking whenever we want so when we find something we want to jump on it. also how much of your home was packed when you started showing it? ours is about 70% packed and we are down to the bare minimum so it helps with keeping the house clean and with 2 little boys i dont want to be rushed at the last minute to pack. we have a few minor touch ups to do befor it goes on the market and we should be done within a week or so, but my mom keeps saying that we should do this and that. did anyone fix basically evey little flaw in their house befor putting it up? we also need new carpet in a few of the rooms pretty badly but we are giving a carpet allowance for what it will cost and put out some samples of different carpet colors so people have a visual about the carpet thing. would having to do the carpet deter you from a house or would you like the idea of getting to pick your own colors for all the rooms and having it paid for? our realtor says that we should do it ourselves but with the 2 boys i am sooooo afraid of spills and such. also i just dont have the time. sorry this got so long, just any advice that you ladies (and gents) have about moving to ease my mind would help, i am a nervous reck to say the least. also, how long did it take for your house to sell once it was on the market? was moving easier or harder then you thought? help!!!!!!! tia :)

[DebbieJ]

You can go looking for a new house and make an offer to buy it contingent on your house selling first. That way you won't have to do any creative financing or have two mortgages at once.

I think the carpet allowance is a good idea. Maybe you can get the current carpets cleaned to make them look a little better? (my sister has a DIY steamer if you want to borrow it)

Our house in Los Angeles sat on the market for four weeks before we accepted an offer. The moving part was different for us since we were moving 2000 miles. :) We packed the boxes, but had professionals pack and drive the truck. We unloaded it ourselves (with the help of family) on this end. It wasn't so bad.

As for packing, you don't want the house to be cluttered, but you do want it to look lived in. You want the prospective buyers to be able to walk through and imagine themselves living there.

Have you asked your agent any of these questions?

~ deb
DS born at home 12/03

http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/user_files/10029.gif

[bcky2]

yep and she is soooo stuck on the carpet that is all she talks about. it isnt that bad at all. the 2 kids rooms doesnt have any carpet and ours has like 2 small stains. the living room has a few spots, but the family room is kinda a mess :) she just keeps saying "we want to put our best foot forward" and that after it is on the market for a week or two we will get some feedback about what people want to see. we did get a steam cleaner as a gift at our reception a few weeks ago, i guess that i will be breaking that sucker in :P we just had the roof done, new siding and facia and gutters in the last month. new cabinet tops and new kitchen floor, new bathtub in one of the bathrooms and new toilet. new water softner and water filtration system. heck, we cant replace it all! we do love our realtor except for the fact that she is vauge on what we should do to sell. but then again her track record for selling is very good. her listings sell very quick and we are in an area where nothing is lasting more then a week or 2 so i have my fingers crossed. oh yeah, we are making contingent on selling ours and i have no idea how you stayed sane moving that far :)

[DebbieJ]

My BIL's brother sold his townhouse in your town in like three days. I think you'll have no problem. :)

It's so hard to see all the work you're putting in only to move out. We did the same. Had the whole interior painted and all of the exterior trim painted as well as replacing some flooring and a bathtub also. All of that time, work, and money! Then you wonder why you didn't do it sooner?!?

Hang in there. If you need somewhere to hang out during open houses or whatever, just drop me a line! I know that was the worst for us--having to leave for four hours with a little one. There's only so much you can do.

~ deb
DS born at home 12/03

http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/user_files/10029.gif

[jasabo]

Defitely get rid of clutter and do as much as you can to make it look good. New paint helps a lot. I know what you mean about carpet. I've got 2 little ones and have become fanatic about not letting them carry drinks or food around since we're moving in a few months. We're fixing everything we see - new paint, landscaping, etc. I want the house to look as new as possible, even though it's less then 2 yrs old. I think a carpet allowence is a good idea, as long as it's an amount that you're sure will cover the costs.

We're packing up a lot and putting it in storage rather then storing it all in the garage b/c we want the garage to look really big. It's a two car, but we've got tons of junk! And buyers like to see lots of room. I'm packing up most of the boys' toys and selling a lot at a yard sale right before we list the house. Like you, I don't want to deal with quick clean-ups of 1000 Matchbox cars from the floor.

As for selling/buying - depends on your market. We're having a house built and will list ours within a month or two of completion. If we sell and can't get a lease back option, we'll have to live in an apt for a few weeks/months. Timing is hard to figure out when buying and selling is involved, but there's not much you can do. You can put a contingency on your offer so if you can't sell your house, you can get out of the new house. But many buyers won't accept those if their market is good and they get more then one offer. You can also sell yours now and try to lease it back from the buyer while you shop for a new house. Or, if you need the money from this house for a down payment on the new house, you can sell this one now and live in an apt until you find a new one. Or, if you can carry two mortgages, buy a new house then sell this one.

I know - I was no help at all. Sorry :) It depends a lot on your situation and your housing market. Good luck.

Lisa - mom to 2 yr old twin boys

[bcky2]

thank you :) when she said that we will need to be gone every time they show it i freaked a little. its not easy to leave for and hour here and there with naps and all. i really hope that we have luck like your bil, it would make me a little more comfortable. a house one block over sold in one day so heck, im crossing my fingers :) there is also a motorcycle guy that lives across from us and he has a few friends that have been trying to find a house in the are, even though he is one of the reasons that we are moving i will still take his friends money :P

[bcky2]

yep, i get to paint this week. we just layed down some bricks and mulch around the house. we are going to get a quote and give that amount as the allowence. our realtor said that normally she says to put boxes in storage but because we have a 3 car garage with an upstairs we have alot of room and it wont be too bad. i am scared of the whole contingency thing because of loosing the house but if another offer comes thru we have 48-72 hours to make our offer non-contingent and if we are lucky by the time that happens we may have sold by then :) you know they really need a little smiley face with its fingers crossed.

[molly]

we just moved in april, so since it's still pretty fresh in my mind, i'll give you our story. we listed our house and then started looking, we actually found "the" house in the fall and put an offer on it with a delayed closing, it was winter time (sort of off season for the market) so that may be why this type of offer was accepted - but this is just an example of some of the things that realtors can do with how you make your offer. we actually ended up selling before the closing date and just moved up the closing date. we rented a storage unit and got rid of all excess furniture/clutter before showing our home. we also fixed everything that we could think of and did what our realtor suggested - sometimes they know what matters most in your market, so if she's really pushing for new carpet, it could be she knows the market is tight and she thinks this will make a difference. i had everything in the house so that i could do a quick run-through cleanup in case of short notice showings which we had tons of - we requested at least an hour notice, but we would get calls saying there were people out front, could they come in and see the place, etc. so my advice is get little storage spots - i used plastic bins under the bed for any mail, books, etc. had a big wicker box for stashing toys and stuff. hampers in the laundry room, etc. i always left my house when there were showings, which meant some naptimes were spent in the car. so, i was really pretty organized/neat during this whole time period - that said, my sister didn't do a thing to their home, no minor repairs, no decluttering, she was often home when people came to look - one time she was giving her son a bath and she let people come through (those happened to be the people that bought the house too) - so it really depends on the market that you are in. she had a medium priced home in a hot real estate market, ours was a higher priced home in a slower market. you kind of have to do what the situation calls for and your realtor is probably advising you relative to your market. hope this helps some, good luck!

molly
mom to william and emma

[hannah]

We decluttered a LOT in our house before putting it on the market. We did not fix every little detail before we put it on the market. The only major thing we did was paint the bathroom walls/ceiling but we would have done that if we had stayed in the house. We were going to replace the front window but ran out of time and in the end it didn't matter as no one complained about the window. By not replacing it we saved ourselves over $2000. We did however, split the cost of a new roof with the buyers.

We didn't start packing until after the house sold, which for us was 4 days after we put it on the market. After we had an offer we started packing and did a lot of the packing ourselves. We hired movers who packed the breakable/fragile items (like the kitchen, china, mirrors, lamps, art). Our stuff is in storage right now because when we left MA for our new location we didn't have a house. Luckily on this end we found a house in 2 days. We move in Aug 28th and hopefully our stuff will be delivered that week. So far everything has gone very smoothly.

As for the carpet I would suggest cleaning it and then giving a carpet allowance because if it we me I would want to pick out the carpet I want (color/texture/etc).

Good luck with selling your house and moving!

[kristenk]

Have you ever seen Sell This House or Designed to Sell? They both deal with getting houses ready to sell. Designed to Sell does a little more handyman kind of things (I can't think of an example, but more than just painting and cleaning) while Sell This House seems to focus most on decluttering, cleaning, painting and arranging furniture. If you have any time (yeah, right!), I highly recommend that you watch a show or two.

Even though a carpet allowance would be nice (and I really like that you'll have carpet samples for people to see), a lot of people are turned off a house if they have to do anything. So, even though you're offering them $xxxx as a carpet allowance, they'll see the dirty carpet and still end up offering less money for the house b/c if the carpet's so bad, then other things have to be bad, too, and they'll have to deal with the hassle of replacing it, etc. Quite frankly, I'm surprised at how many people think that even just *painting* a room is a really big deal. If your realtor is really good and her houses sell quickly, I think that I'd probably take her advice - especially since she seems to be fixated on it! Good luck with the house hunt, house sale, and move!

[bcky2]

thank you all so much. i have seen that show about selling your house befor, i may need to find out when it is on to see what they do :) im sure we will get thru it fine, it is just so nerve racking. i also am one of thoes people who want to know every thing that could possibly happen and plan for it, i also tend to expect the worse x(

[KrisM]

We have decided to buy first, then move, then sell our house. We are able to do that financially and I realize not everyone can. But, if you can, it is nice. I was worried about having to be out of the house for showings and DS still naps twice a day. We figured we'd have to rent a storage unit to put a ton of stuff in for showing it, too. So, for us, this order works. We are hoping that our house doesn't take too long to sell.

If we weren't able to do that, I would buy with a contingency on selling. If you sell first, you would potentially have to move into an apartment or something and I would not want to move twice!

When you show your house, make sure all clutter is gone. Have empty counters in the kitchen and bathrooms - no toothbrushes, paper towels, knives, etc. Take all the stuff off the fridge, too. We won't fix everything, but will make sure most is looking good, both inside and outside. I think a carpet allowance is great. We considered it with our kitchen floor, but it gaps at the edges and looks terrible, so we are replacing it. But that is only $320 to do ourselves.

If you have time, go through an model house in a new development and see how they stage the house.

Good luck!

[Momof3Labs]

Don't do it!!! j/k

One word for you - PODS. www.pods.com They are storage units that are dropped in your driveway, you pack them and lock them, and they remove them and store in their facility. Then when you are in your new home, they deliver the pod to your new house. You unload it, and they come take it away. So much less work than a storage unit, and you'll have to pay to move the stuff anyways (bigger truck, movers' time, whatever) so it isn't that expensive at all.

Personally, I'd try cleaning the carpets first. If only one room is really bad, just replace that one room and don't even mention the other rooms. I wouldn't leave yucky carpets in there because IMO it will affect your selling price, even with a carpet "allowance" (buyers love to double-dip on these types of things). Plus, I'd rather not have to worry about replacing carpets while I'm in the process of moving into a house.

We found a house first, but didn't start looking until we were basically ready to list our house. We made a contingency offer on this house, listed our own house, and had 3 offers in 5 days. I tried to leave for showings, but if they were during naptime, I didn't. Heck, sometimes I got calls while DS was sleeping, and no way was I waking him to get out for a showing! I cracked his door open, put a note on the door to please be quiet, baby sleeping, and took the monitor out and sat in back or in the neighbor's yard.

Every morning that we were on the market, we'd get up and clean the house. Floors were my worst enemy, since we had white ceramic tile in the large kitchen (shows everything). I'd get the upstairs in "show" condition and we'd stay downstairs in the kitchen/family room for the rest of the day (except naptime). So, there was a lot less to do should we get a showing on very short notice.

I like to buy a new set of towels and bathmats for the bathrooms to put out for showings. And open all shades and turn on all lights for every showing, even during the day! No need to fix every flaw, but the visible ones are a good idea. You want the house to look cared for and kept up. A fresh coat of paint goes a long way, too.

Finally, as far as realtors go, if you don't like yours (despite her sales record), DO NOT USE HER!! Trust me, it won't be worth the headache!! You want someone who will be on your side and fight for you, no matter how big or small the issue - TRUST ME!!

E-mail me if you want to chat further, and good luck!!