Getting Ready to Buy a New Home

We’re outgrowing our current home. With the interest rates and home prices as low as they are, we figure now is a great time to grab a bigger house – one that’ll still fit us when the boys are teenagers, and we won’t have to move again, ever. (Moving is a pain in the butt.)

A couple weeks ago, we learned that someone we knew had their house up for sale. We went by to take a look at it, and it was really nice – we fell in strong like with it. We talked about it for a couple of days, and were seriously considering making a move on it, but then we learned they already had an offer, and they accepted it. Oh well.

Then we learned of another house near Calfgrit8’s best friend, and we called to make an appointment to go see it in two days. The day before our intended visit, the agent called and said someone else had made an offer and the owners accepted. Jeeeez.

Then we found another house to look at, and made an appointment to visit it the next day. One hour before our appointment, the agent called and said someone made an offer and the owners accepted. Oh for the love of . . . .

Okay, okay, we gotta be ready to act. We can’t do this lazily. So, we decided to go ahead and get our house ready to sell. Then we can get an agent to start looking for us and we can be ready to visit and offer without delay.

All last weekend and this week, we’ve had dozens of cardboard boxes scattered around the house. We’ve been moving out big stuff and storing them at my mother-in-law’s house, (she lives just a couple of miles from us), so we can show our house to potential buyers – want the place to look open and uncrowded with our stuff so buyers can more easily picture their own stuff in the floor plan.

Now, some areas of the house look worse than normal because of boxes and sitting piles of various stuff scattered about. But other areas are looking clear and open. We probably have another week of clearing non-essential stuff out before we can present our house to buyers.

The biggest problem we’re finding with trying to get this place ready to show and sell is keeping the boys’ toys in control. They can have a hundred toys strewn across three rooms faster than Cowgrit and I can pack a single cardboard box. We walk out of the den for one minute, come back, and the floor is carpeted in Pokemon cards, Lego pieces, stuffed animals, and Hotwheels cars.

Bullgrit