Selling our condo

Once WS knew for certain that he had the job in CO we decided to put our LA area condo on the market. This is an entirely new experience for me. WS bought this condo when we were still dating. I had no idea what was involved. There is a lot more to selling a home than I thought! Our realtor is very good at what she does. She's on top of everything! That has been a big plus for us.

I know that this market is tough for sellers. We looked at the price of condos in our area and we took into consideration what the last few units sold for before we decided on a price. We priced our condo about $10,000 cheaper than what our neighbors sold their identical unit for. They were one of the last to sell theirs. They had more updates than our condo and we wanted to bring in people to look. We figured that a low price would at least bring people in.

I think that one of the best tools for bringing in potential buyers was our realtor's internet virtual tour that she put together. It brought in potential buyers from the first day that she put it on the internet. In fact, our current buyer found her virtual tour and came in on the first day.

The worst part about having a home for sale is leaving for work in the morning. Our realtor wanted NO CLUTTER! We are very neat people, but she wanted nothing anywhere. We even took down E's art projects from our fridge. It took me extra time that I don't have to prep our house for showing every day. Our beds had to look like catalog beds. There could not be any paperwork on the kitchen counter. I had to put up decorative towels and put E's bathroom stuff away. I had to make sure that I didn't leave the five outfits that I tried on that morning on the bed. I usually leave the bed pretty messy when I rush out of the door in the morning. This was tough for me. I actually didn't have to do this every morning. I wasn't forced to, but I felt that it would help sell our place faster.

We actually had our first offer during the first week that it was on the market. The offer was horribly low. It was about $30,000 less than our listing price and they wanted us to pay all of their closing costs. I was upset because I felt that our price was low anyway. I didn't even want to consider it. We countered back $7,000 less than our asking price. They countered back $3,000 higher than their original offer. I told our realtor that I didn't want to participate in this back and forth stupidity any more. Then I became concerned. What if this was our only offer? We have a time line. WS' job begins on June 14.

Fortunately, a second offer came about a week later. It was $10,000 less than our listing price. We ended up countering and we are selling for only $4,500 below what we listed for. We are in escrow and we are set to close on June 10th. So far so good.

On a side note...the amount of paperwork that is involved in selling a home is so much! When we first met our realtor, she gave us a file folder organizer. She wasn't kidding. It seems like we just sign something and then there's something that we forgot or that she has to write up and send to the buyers. There are documents for everything! I had no idea. I can't wait to be done.