How We Sold Our House in a Week - Part 1

When you're a stay-at-home mom, your life might sometimes be lacking that feeling of a job well done.  By that I mean the job never ends (cleaning up toys, washing clothes, wiping spills, making food); but also that you usually won't see the real fruit of your labor for decades - not weeks, months or even years. 

This can be difficult, especially if you happen to be the type of creature, like me, who is doing all these things without much enjoyment of the tasks, but mostly out of a committed love for your children and husband.  That being the case, it's a wonderful thing when a stay-at-home mom like myself finds something else - an activity, skill, hobby, business - she happens to be good at, enjoys, and can actually stamp FINISHED! 

This is what I discovered when my husband and I decided to sell our house last year.  I found that I was good at doing that sort of thing, and loved (mostly) every minute of it.  We ended up selling our house in a week, even in a tough market, with a full-price offer.  I thought I'd share how we did that.

The very first thing I did was research like the dickens.

I've always liked the shows about anything real estate-related: flipping, renovating, finding, selling, landscaping, redecorating - doesn't matter, I love them.  So I already had some general knowledge (or at least familiarity) with some of what we needed to know.  I've also been involved in real estate investing since 2009, so that helped too.

But all that really wasn't enough to be informed.  I'm a big fan of the phrase "informed consent", and pretty much take it to heart in everything I do.  I want to know all about what I am doing and why, and take responsibility for the outcome.  This is a not-so-great philosophy in some areas, but works out really well when selling your house.  After getting my bearings with a humble "what to know when selling your house" Google search, here's what I eventually did to prepare:


Watched lots of episodes of Get It Sold, featuring Sabrina Soto. I liked the show, and appreciated the emphasis on real current market value for pricing, and the practical tips on staging it gave you.  Their formula seemed to work to get the homes sold (and jived with what I knew from investing), so we basically used this approach to selling our home: price it right, and make it look as close to perfect as we can.

Looked at tons of home staging principles, tips and pictures.  They're everywhere on the internet, and I gobbled them up, especially noting features and problems that were also in my house.  Take note of the tips you see most common (like de-cluttering, cleaning, etc.) and know that those are your priority.

Only used a realtor we found by way of referral from someone we personally know.  The realtor we used when we bought our house was also a friend, and the previous property manager of a house we rented.  He referred us to our selling realtor - they were acquaintances and both former Marines. 

Made sure the realtor posts high-quality pictures in their listings.  Something like 80% of home buyers look on the internet first.  They won't want to look at your home in person if the pictures they see are fuzzy, dark, have awkward angles, don't show full rooms, etc.  Your realtor should have a high-quality camera or hire a photographer - a regular ol' digital camera won't cut it.  We looked at our realtor's current listings and saw beautiful, inviting pictures with great lighting that highlighted all the best aspects of the house.  Here's a great blog of ugly house photos: how NOT to do it!

Next, I'll post about how we priced our house, and what we had to do to get it ready to sell.

Reality Checks

Then everything started coming up.  In that state of silence, there was room now for everything hateful, everything fearful, to run across my empty mind.  I felt like a junkie in detox, convulsing with the poison of what emerged.  I cried a lot.  I prayed a lot.  It was difficult and it was terrifying, but this much I knew - I never didn't want to be there, and I never wished that anyone were there with me.  I knew that I needed to do this and that I needed to do it alone.

This is like Advanced Counseling for Patients.  It's what happens after you start to unravel yourself a bit and understand that stillness and solitude must come and reveal the rest.  It's the entering into pain, after finally having someone introduce you to it, and tell you its name.

I don't talk much about what it's been like for me to go to counseling the last two years.  For many people, it's simply too embarrassing (or possibly shameful) to hear.  I'm also not entirely convinced it's useful to explain the complexities, depth and sheer intensity of emotions, memories, connections and insights; they're mine, after all. 

But I do wonder at what it is exactly that draws some of us into this particular stage of growth: why do we willingly enter into this suffering and pain and hellish torment of the soul, despite having descriptions like the ones above, to warn us?  What prompted me?

Well, it helps that I didn't understand exactly what I'd be getting into until it was too late to back out.  I came to Bruce, our counselor, because our marriage had finally come to an impasse: I wasn't moving and neither was he.  Thankfully (by God's merciful grace), this was simply too painful for either of us to bear. 

But what actually drew me into the Mystery that she describes above - that strange, voluntary hell as we go through the process of looking at ourselves, at Reality - was a promise I read in a book, given to a woman who was just like me, standing at her own crossroads and faced with a choice to walk down the path or not: "you will have a better life than you could ever imagine".

Well, it sounded like another promise that Jesus gave, about life and, really, abundant life.  Obviously: yes, please.  So down I went into the rabbit hole.  And this woman (who I will reluctantly admit is Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love) describes it well in the quote above.

I'm becoming a Reformed Mystic, I suppose, and marveling at all the mysteries in this world, and also at the funny joke God plays on us by giving us hints of the divine but also giving us bread, and wine and pudding and roller coasters and beaches.  The Incarnate and the Transcendent, together.