Selling our home

After accepting the position at Independence University and then suffering through the weekend until we could turn in the resignation letter at Broadview, we immediately went to work getting things in order to sell our home in Caldwell.

We started a huge pile of things to sell/get rid of. I found a webpage called agentpronto that put me in touch with 3 of the best listing agents in my area. I had them each over, interviewed them and spent quite a bit of time researching and finding the best match for me, since I would be the one working almost exclusively with the agent. It was a hard decision! I'm so glad I didn't just go with so and so because I knew they were a Realtor. I learned a LOT about different strategies, methods, photography, etc that lead to the success of selling a home quickly. We were pretty excited to see the comparable numbers in order to help us find a listing price. I made my decision to go with a Realtor named Alissa. She immediately sent me over a contract on Wednedsay, but then went dark in communication after that. It was really frustrating. She had really impressed with her initial presentation and feedback, but I started having doubts as soon as I signed the contract and was expecting to move forward immediately, and there was nothing from her.

 In the meantime, we posted some poor quality pictures of the home on facebook and made it known that we were selling our home. 

We went to a ward auction on Friday night, and Marc was approached by some friends of ours that they wanted to buy our house. We were kind of floored! No way! We told them if they could get pre-approved and get all their financing in order, we'd definitely consider it.

I continued to move forward with the Realtor, they sent a professional stager out to my home on like Tuesday or Wednesday the next week to help me with what to do in order to get it ready to have pictures and then showings. I had worked so hard to get the home cleaned, organized, and felt like it was really looking good! She had so many more things to point out and I was really discouraged after she left. The photographer was set to come that next Wednesday to take professional pictures of the home.

Our friends had been working with the loan agent all week and found out that they got pre-approved for the loan and asked if they could come see the house. It was General Conference weekend that they came through. They brought all of their teenage boys. My mom had come out to help me pack up some boxes, and instead she showed up and quickly took all of my kids away in a hurry so they weren't in the way during our "showing".  The family liked what they saw and said they wanted to move forward with the purchase of the home! My mom came back saying "This is too easy!! There's no way it's supposed this easy!"

We could save a significant amount of money by not paying Realtor fees. Since we already had a buyer lined up, there was no need to list the home. My brother is a licensed real estate broker, He said if we could get out of the contract that I had signed with Alissa, he would be willing to be an adviser as we sold the property by owner. Since they had yet to take pictures of the home nor list it on the MLS, we were able to get out of the contract. We sat down at our kitchen table with our friends, spent one night negotiating a little bit, were not able to come to a resolution that night, so we came back together the next night with some new propositions, they agreed to the terms and we all filled out a blank contract. My brother helped me with filling out the confusing areas and I took the signed contract over to a title company the next day!

We were officially under contract as of April 8 and intended to close by May 15th. Marc was starting his new job on April 20th, so we had a little bit of time to help me start getting the house in order. The inspection was done, and everything went well with that. We were told as soon as the inspection was finished that an appraisal would be ordered, so everything was moving along smoothly!