Anybody want to buy a house?

Did you think I fell of the face of the earth?  Nope still here.  And as always, crazy busy.  (notice a theme?)

So whats happened in the last month since I posted?

We had a couple of birthday's to celebrate!  Chance turned 10 (gasp! double digits) and Parker turned 6.  Yikes.  They are getting old which means I am getting even older.  We had birthday parties and cake and sleepovers and the month has gone by in warp speed.  Tomorrow is seriously the 1st of March?

Also one of these showed up in my yard:

No, that is not my house.  Or the actual sign.  I would post the real sign but this is the Internet and there are creepers out there. 

Its been pretty much a whirlwind.  We met with the realtor on a Tuesday, spent the next 5 days busting butt to get the house ready, almost divorced in the process and by Monday we were active on the market.  We've been on now for 18 days, have had 15 showings, 2 second showings and an open house with about a dozen people come through.

Unfortunately, no offers yet. :(

I can honestly say that when we do eventually sell this place and move, we are never doing this again.  They can cart my hiney out of the next house straight to the nursing home.  Or looney bin.  Or whatever.  We aren't moving again.  Or I should say selling a house again.  This has been one of the most stressful things I have ever done.  Its like a roller coaster.  One day you are on a high because you have had a ton of showings, you are getting great feedback, feels like an offer is imminent and then BOOM.  Nothing.  Hit a low.  Go a few days, no showings then BAM tons of showings, great feedback, feeling good, nothing....Lather, rinse, repeat.

The feedback is fun (sarcasm here).  I love people critiquing my house. One of my favorites so far has been "the place seems used".  Errrr, you do know people live here right?  Like it is used.  We use it to live here.  The house was built in 1984.  People have used it.  Its going to get used after we leave too. That's kinda what you do when you live in a house.  You use it.  What were you expecting exactly?  My realtor was baffled.  She wasn't even really sure what that meant.  And that was all the feedback the agent left.  Just those four words....the place seems used.  So helpful.  We've gotten a lot of good feed back too.  Just wish we'd get an offer already.

Monday will be three weeks we've been on the market.  Although it feels like its been a year. If we don't have an offer by then, we are going to reduce the price.  I just want to be done with it. move on.  Besides my hair is falling out at an alarming rate from the stress and I don't think I can take being bald on top of all the crap I am already dealing with.

It's about to get REAL

As usual, it’s been crazy. I keep waiting for things to slow down but it seems like they never do. This month is especially nutty for us because we have both the boys’ birthdays, parties and Tom leaves for an overseas trip. Ugh. January flew by fast, I can only imagine how fast February is going to go.

We finished up the kitchen and I will post pics soon. It turned out just the way we wanted it and are really happy with how it looks. We haven’t done many more projects since then. Long story short we gave up on listing this year. We were pretty sure this wasn’t the right time after much discussion and had pretty much shelved it for now. We hadn’t talked to a realtor but just felt like it wasn’t worth anyones time. We figured we’d take our time over the next year and try again. After all, that’s what we are used to. The mantra is always, “Maybe next year”.

Back up to this past Saturday night which involved a sleepover with a new friend of Chance’s and meeting his Mom who just happens to be a realtor. I can’t even remember how it came up in conversation other than she was commenting on how she works a lot, odd hours, etc and I asked her what she did. We weren’t even thinking of talking to a realtor (or at that point even trying to find one) but somehow one found us.

All I had to do was mention we were thinking of listing our house (honestly I think to a realtor that is like blood in the water to a shark). She is very interested, seemed very positive that we’d have a good outcome and wants to come take a look. Can’t hurt right? She said right now inventory is really low and anything that is coming on the market (that is priced right) is going very, very quickly. She’s already pulled comps for us that look very promising. She told us to start looking for a new place.

Tomorrow at 5:30 she is coming over to view the property and talk numbers. And then?

I am already about to throw up.