When we bought our house I was CONVINCED that it would be our forever home. HA! If only I could bottle that optimism and naiveté. Now 5 years and 2 kids later, we have finally admitted that we've outgrown it. Well, we've known it for 2 years, but we can finally afford to do something about it.
Since houses can't just magically get bigger* we've been shaking things up left and right to get ourselves some new digs.
*Both being architects, we certainly considered adding onto our house rather than moving. Unfortunately our small lot, room layout and roofline are all working against us.
- We are under contract on a new house! Most people would consider it unwise to buy before selling, but we decided we would rather be in a rush to sell than scramble to buy. We really, REALLY didn't want to settle for a house we don't love just so we could find something before we have to move out.
- We convinced Steven's grandparents to let our kids live with them until we sell our house. This is our new routine:
- wake up, go straight to Grandma's house in our pj's
- get the kids dressed
- shower and dress ourselves (with clothes we brought from home)
- go to work
- come back to Grandma's house to cook and eat dinner
- clean up dishes
- play with the kids and then put the kids to bed
- go back to our house for TV and sleep.
True, it's not ideal but the thought of keeping a house show-ready with 2 kids in the house was giving me panic attacks. We have a house cleaner come once a month, and the house is disgusting 5 minutes after the kids come home. They get crumbs and toys everywhere.
- We spent an entire weekend decluttering our house in preparation for our listing photographs. In addition to shipping off the kids and boxing up their toys, we now have a large chunk of our stuff in a POD in the driveway. Want to know the secret to a magazine-worthy house? Get rid of half of your stuff and all your kids, and cook meals in someone else's house! So easy!
- Our house is on the market! The listing went live last Tuesday and we've already had 2 showings. We were hoping for lots of traffic over the holiday weekend, but no dice. Our realtor says holidays are funny, so we're still optimistic. If you know of someone looking to buy in the Raleigh area, let me know and I'll send you the listing.
UPDATE: We're now up to 5 showings!
- Disclaimer, for those of you concerned about our financial sanity: We negotiated a long due diligence period in our offer to buy and if we haven't gotten any offers on our current house we will walk away. This means we would have to find another house after we've sold the first one. It will suck because, true to form, I am already way too in love with something that isn't guaranteed. We just aren't willing to carry 2 mortgages or drastically reduce our down payment (no sale = no equity) just because we're impatient.
I'll definitely keep you posted, and please cross your fingers (and toes, and eyes) for us that we find a buyer and everything goes smoothly!
No comments:
Post a Comment