This whole house shopping this has taught me a lot about myself. I like old houses. That surprised me because I tend to be a modern girl. I can handle medical stress, but buckle when my house falls out of escrow. I literally haven't slept in a month.
You know when people ask you, if there was one job you would never want, what is it? Well, I learned what mine is. General contractor. I have spent the past week coordinating people in and out of this house. Window washers, cleaning people, basement contractors, stove fixers, gutter cleaners, etc, etc, etc. I'm exhausted from the sheer effort of it. From coordinating this 8 to noon window with this 4 to 7 window. With sitting around and skipping the gym and calling them back when they DO THE JOB WRONG. Like securing the gutter to house, exactly how hard is that?
We have spent more money than we ever dreamed to just SELL THIS STUPID HOUSE. And that is before a home inspection with people who actually PLAN TO BUY IT.
Oh, and have we found anything else we want to buy? Like that last house? No. Nothing. So I'm selling my house in order to be homeless.
Years ago I bought a pack of lint rollers at Costco. We never used them and they sat on my dresser until we de cluttered the house and I threw them out. I used to say the lint rollers were my worst idea ever. I'm now reconsidering. Selling this house was my worst idea ever.
Don't get me wrong. I still want to move. I still hate this house and believe we can find something better. I just wish I knew how awful it was going to be when we started.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Next summer you’ll be sitting in your fabulous new house and you’ll hardly even remember the stress it took to get there.
Well, OK, you’ll remember it…but you’ll think it was worth it.
oh wow sounds like a horrible experience and trying to sell a house in this economy must be hard. We are trying to rent out our house so we can move closer to my job (which is 65 miles away currently), but I love my house and am very anxious to leave it. we’ll see how it goes..but good luck to you.. hope things work out
this is why i’m never moving again. good luck to you.
Well, at least you were able to sell the house? Silver lining, no? We had to move due to a job situation and could not sell the house for the life of us. Trying to coordinate all of that stuff while living like two hours away REALLY sucks.
That being said, I totally know where you are coming from right now. Hope it passes quickly! (and you find a fabulous new place that makes it all worthwhile)
Two years ago, we wanted to sell the house we lived in that we bought when we got married in 2002. It was 690 square feet, built in 1929. I LOVED the house… but we wanted to have a second child, and we were at a loss as to where we would put them in that house! We needed to buy something before we sold, because as you can imagine a 690 sq. ft. 1929 house, needs some fixing up, some staging, etc. in order to make it look NOT 690 sq. ft. and NOT built in 1929… Long story short, we bought a condo that is 1400 sq. ft., 4 blocks away, put the house on the market… and the CA real estate bubble burst. AFTER we paid 500,000 for the new place which promptly lost about 100,000 of its value… OH, and the house didn’t sell. We currently rent it out at a loss every month. By the way, in 2002, in California (Bay Area) I paid 320,000 for that 690 sq. ft. and not much more yard… just for some perspective. What you are going through now SUCKS, but soon it will be over, and you won’t EVER have to do it AGAIN! Good Luck.
We just tried to refinance and our house is worth way less than we bought it for. So, I said well, I’m sure glad we didn’t want to sell anytime soon. Reading about your experience makes me doubly glad. Sure hope you can get some sleep and I’m certain at some future point there will be a great post about how it was all worth it. Good luck!