Adventures in...realestate

I worked for years in a bank and helped a lot of people get their first mortgage. 

“You’re approved!”

Their faces lit up like a Christmas tree. I couldn’t help but smile back.

I’ve also worked with couples who were seeking a new home to upsize or downsize. But that didn’t mean I’ve ever really considered the effort involved with moving. Nope.

The time had come for us. Yikes.

Pat, our real estate agent connected us with a stager… and a warning. Bland neutral colours. Ugh! Penny arrived, walked around, and began giving us suggestions. 

‘Move this. Move this.’

Fussy…fussy…fussy.

‘No,’ I wanted to scream like a kid. ‘Are you trying to tell me our home is cluttered? It isn’t. But apparently, we had too much ‘stuff’. I must admit, doing (mostly) as we were told made the rooms appear a bit bigger. Penny one, Heath zip.

For the life of me, I don’t know why Penny had a problem with the sun-dried tomato paint on the living room walls. Or the shade of suede in the dining room and caramel colour on the master bedroom walls. I know, I know, we painted eons ago, but still. I liked the colours. Why wouldn’t potential buyers like it? We bit our tongues and agreed to have it painted.

Thankfully, Penny connected us with Chris, a painter. 

Bye-bye caramel, suede and tomato walls. Hello, creamy off-white. Not my preference, at all. Even Chris preferred the other colours. I like her. Penny arrived with some ornamental plants and some pillows. I wasn’t too interested in the ornamental stuff, but I bought the pillows from her. They will be great in the new house. I gave the white pillows to my mom. 

I bought new towels. A bit of a rebel, I was told to buy all white, but couldn’t resist the teal combo. 

The photographer arrived complete with a drone. Woohoo, he captured the solar panels.

The sign was hung at the front of the property and we crossed our fingers and toes. Nine showings in fifteen days. Not bad knowing the rural housing market was slow. We had a showing on Saturday morning and Pat contacted us on Saturday afternoon, from her niece’s wedding, saying we were to expect an offer. 

Fingers crossed, again, keeping the house staged was a bit of a pain. No, it was almost impossible. Did I tell you the neighbours across the road were dumping truckloads of dirt five days a week? The dust! Ugh. I was told to keep the windows clean. What an impossible task. They say timing is everything. Horrible timing on our part. No, the neighbour’s part. Couldn’t they have done this a year or two ago? Sheesh.  

Our home had a conditional offer. They wanted a water sample. Not concerned, we celebrated. 

Now the real work was about to begin.