Well, that's it. Our house is officially on the market. And I am celebrating by enjoying a pint (or several) of IPA and some Irish nachos (did you know this is a thing??) by my lonesome at our favourite brewery downtown. And after the week I've had, let me tell you--this is perfection.
So, in case you are unaware, selling a house is kind of the dickens. And by "kind of," I mean T-O-T-A-L-L-Y. And I'm not sure what mechanism allows the hyphens to give extra emphasis to an already-all caps word, but apparently they do, and really, extra emphasis is exactly what we're going for here.
We bought this house, our first, in 2009, when the market was crazy, crazy, crazy in the throes of the Great Recession. That whole process was a nine-month-long nightmare in itself, but we bought our sweet 1940's bungalow as the classic "starter home," and expected to be there five or so years. It's turned out to be a fantastic investment for us, and here we are, a little more than five years later, and we're ready to move on. But that's apparently not just a decision you make and then get on with in our situation, mostly because our house falls into the "needs TLC" category. And it does. We have put a lot of work into the house, but it had little to no updating when we purchased it (it was a trust sale--the family had bought it two years after it was built and lived, raised a family, and died in the house), and needs some bigger work done that we're just not willing to take on at this point. We love, love, love our little house, but it's on a busy road (to which we lost a kitty last summer and had a dog miraculously survive mostly unscathed after getting hit by a car shortly after moving in), and only has one bathroom, which is kind of (REALLY) a bummer after a while. So, per our agent's recommendation, we busted our asses the past couple of weeks to add some nice touches to make it even more attractive than it already is (seriously, it's adorable and charming--original hardwood floors, crown moulding, gorgeous light, large rooms for the size of the house, beautiful fireplace and mantel, etc.) to offset a bit the fact that it does need some work (it's structurally sound, but needs a new roof and major drainage on the property, etc.).
SO. Why am I so happy to be completely alone, being served by others as I celebrate? Because this past week was the really critical week of work...and just happened to be week one of THREE IN A ROW that The Barbarian is gone ALL FUCKING WEEK. So, yeah. I cleaned and sanded and painted and performed other random nonsense ALL damn week--with the tremendous help of both families, of course, because they are AWESOME where families are concerned--and came scary close to losing my mind, if we're supporting honesty here. In case I haven't mentioned this before, I rely on The Barbarian A LOT for emotional and mental balance and serenity, so taking this all on with him thousands of miles away, even WITH the help of our families, was extraordinarily challenging for me.
And our poor tiny humans just got the brunt of it. Seriously. It's been bad. It's been so bad that they, in their very honest toddler way, announced shortly before The Barbarian arrived home yesterday that they wanted to just hang out with Daddy, and that I specifically was NOT invited. OUCH. And this morning they were chatting to each other saying they "have so much to do," something I've been, not always patiently or respectfully, telling them all week. Ugh. I escaped into the spare room last night to decompress after dinner while The Barbarian did bedtime, and was informed later, upon inquiring, that the wee folk didn't ask about me at all. They were perfectly content to just be with Daddy and forget I was even there. And I don't blame them. Sigh.
But we did it. We busted our asses and got the house listed. And now for the really fun part. Now we essentially have to make the entire family, including dogs, scarce for the bulk of the day on weekends and basically at a moment's notice during the week. Oh, fucking joy. This will go on for about a week and a half before we review offers, assuming we have offers to review. But the nice thing is that inventory is low in our area right now and the number of buyers is continuing to increase as the job market does. Many of the houses I'm seeing in our range are going within a week, and that would just be fucking phenomenal. Except...
Except for the fact that we are doing that most ridiculous of dances that is the contingency dash, where we attempt to sell and buy a house simultaneously. Try to secure a new house first and you end up needing alternate financing and essentially an entire second loan and mortgage for the crossover period. But secure a buyer for your current house first and you run the risk of having nowhere to go. And I refuse to rent during the interim with wee folk in the mix. This will be an tremendous change for them as it is. I refuse to move them and then move them again a few months later. So while we hope ours goes quickly, we're also scrambling to find a new home. And being that inventory is low and buyers are aplenty, that bodes well for the first part, but not at all for the second.
But they tell me this sort of thing works out all the time. I think they're all full of shit, but we'll see.
So fingers crossed. Both sets. One for an awesome buyer for our house, and one for an awesome new home for us.
All at the same time.
Like magic.
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