Young House Love

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How We Sold Our Second House By Owner

Holy cow, did we just sell our house?

(I’ll pause while Sherry flails around since that sentence is a trigger).

Now that we’re through the inspection & the appraisal (and the closing date is officially on the calendar), we’re finally at the point that we feel safe enough to shout it to the interwebs (we waited until this point to share the “we sold our house” news last time too). Of course nothing’s guaranteed until we’re all signing on the dotted line in early June, but so far, so good…

Selling Contract

First, some background: Sherry was set on selling our house FSBO (For Sale By Owner) again. She argued that we stood to save nearly ten grand – or even more – by not owing a Realtor the 6% commission. Even if we sold to a buyer with an agent (like we did last time) we’d only be out 3% instead of 6%… so the numbers were pretty compelling. But I still wasn’t so sure. I remembered the stress that we felt last time and was also curious to experience selling with an agent. We came to a compromise. We decided we’d try straight up FSBO for a week. If that didn’t work, we’d list it on MLS for a few hundred bucks ourselves (which is what got us a buyer last time) and if there still weren’t offers a few weeks later, we’d think about engaging a Realtor.

Now for the timeline details:

Friday, April 26: The Realtor who helped us buy our new house (Anne) checks in to see if our current house is on the market yet (she knew we were hoping to sell it sometime this spring). Turns out she has some buyers looking for a ranch and she thinks ours would be perfect. We tell her that we’ll be sharing the news/putting it on the market in four days. She says she’ll call us back if they want to see it then. This is a reenactment. And it makes Sherry cry laugh. 

Reenactment

Saturday & Sunday, April 27 & 28: We spend the weekend furiously getting last minute projects done, on the off chance that we get any quick interest (we’ll write up a whole post about what we did to “stage” our house for a showing soon).

Now here’s where the days become a bit more action-packed…

Monday, April 29

  • 2 pm: Anne the Realtor calls. Her buyers are very excited about seeing our house. She wants to bring them by the next day at 2pm. Yikes!
  • 2:30 pm: Come down from the high of our first scheduled showing to realize we haven’t made a flyer or decided on a sale price. Uhh…. better get on that.
  • 3 pm: Begin frantically cleaning the house. Since when did Clara have so many toys? And where would we be without storage ottomans?

Ottoman

  • 9:30 pm: After some scrambling and looking at comparable homes for sale, we pick a list price and throw together a flyer.
  • 12:30 am: Computer freezes while attempting to print flyer. File is lost. Too tired to recreate.

Tuesday, April 30

  • 7 am: Up early-ish to recreate flyer and proofread our post with the new house news.
  • 9 am: Flyer is printed. House still doesn’t look clean enough. More cleaning commences.
  • 10 am: Post is up and comments are rolling in faster than we can keep up with them, but the caulk around the tub is too grimy. Where’s the caulk gun?
  • 1:30 pm: House is looking presentable, but we’re a sweaty mess. Good thing Anne the Realtor will be doing the showing.

Dining Room Side

  • 1:45 pm: Anne arrives early (as planned) for us to show her some of the improvements since she last visited.
  • 1:55 pm: Buyers are early (not as planned) so we high-tail it out of there so they can look around without us hovering.
  • 2 pm: Since we have Burger with us as well as Clara, we kill time at a nearby dog-friendly walking mall. We have some fun browsing places like Banana Republic (where Clara and Burger try out the three way mirror) and Build-A-Bear (without actually building a bear, which is a parental coup if we’ve ever had one).

Banana Pic

  • 3 pm: It’s a full hour later – and Clara’s naptime – but we haven’t received a call from Anne that we’re clear to come home. We try giving her a ring but our call goes to voicemail.
  • 3:15 pm: Clara’s late for her nap and she’s getting tired of being at the mall. We assume Anne forgot to call us and drive home.
  • 3:30 pm: We turn onto our street to see Anne and the buyers just getting into their cars. Wow. An hour and a half at a first showing seems pretty good. Maybe they liked it!
  • 3:31 pm: Anne calls to say they really liked it and they were going to sleep on it, crunch some numbers, and get back to us.
  • 4 pm: We’re excited and relieved, but have tons of comments to catch up on. Plus, we’ve had a few other house-interest emails from locals. We’re a pretty even mix of grateful, tired, and nervous.
  • 8pm: We’ve sent out a few other flyers via email and have scheduled another showing for 11am the next morning. How did this house get so messy already? Oh yeah, our three year old…
  • Midnight: House is reasonably clean again. We crash for the day.

Wednesday, May 1

  • 5 am: Sherry can’t sleep thinking about all of the new house projects and potential buyer excitement. She begins drafting a Q&A post for you guys.
  • 5:30am: I get up to go to the gym before the girls wake up. Clearly I missed Sherry rolling out of bed already.
  • 7:30am: I’m back. Clara’s up. Time to get her fed and ready to go on an adventure with Grammy.
  • 10am: Post is up. Clara’s with Grammy. Counters need wiping down post-breakfast. House is ready for its second showing.
  • 11am: Potential buyers show up with their agent. Sherry, Burger, and I go for a walk (pretend this is a picture of Sherry, me, and Burger instead of a shot with Clara and no Sherry).

Walking Showing

  • 11:30am: Get a call from someone that we sent a flyer to last night while we’re out on our walk. They want to come see the house that afternoon. Woo hoo!
  • Noon: Second showing is done. Agent says they liked it a lot, and have to talk to their lender with some questions. I let the agent know there’s another interested buyer but that no offers have come in yet.
  • 2:30pm: Clara is back from Grammy’s and the third potential buyers show up. They don’t have an agent, so I show them around the house while the girls go walking with Burger. Sherry’s getting lots of exercise today!

Walking Again

  • 3pm: Third showing is done. They seem to like it, but don’t appear as interested as the other two families.
  • 3:30pm: Anne the Realtor calls. She’s sending us an offer from the first couple who walked through our house yesterday. It’s strong, but $5k below our asking price. “Thanks so much! We’ll get back to you soon!” is our response (while we sweat profusely).
  • 4pm: We think things through and discuss everything a few dozen times. I call the buyer’s agent from the morning showing just to let him know that we have an offer on the table. He asks me to hold tight, they’ll have one for us within a few hours. Whaaa?!!!
  • 7pm: Second offer comes in. It’s not as strong as the first. Bummer, but at least it helps make the decision clear. We call Anne back, tell her we have another offer, and ask if we can meet in the middle on the price ($3k above their offer, which is just $2k below our asking price).
  • 7:15pm: Anne calls to say that the buyers have agreed to the new price and she’ll be bringing over papers for us to sign in an hour!
  • 8:30pm: We sign about twenty papers with our minds spinning. Our house is officially under contract! And it’s less than 36 hours after our first showing. In our heads we’re doing a celebratory Elaine-from-Seinfeld dance, but in reality we’re too tired to move.

Now we just have a bunch of little things to check off of our list (a few inspection items, ordering a final termite inspection, and of course packing things up and getting moved into the new house). Should be a busy month!

Selling Making List

I can’t tell you how grateful and relieved we are at how quickly and smoothly this second FSBO process has been so far (just like last time we’ll pay 3% to the buyer’s agent, but we saved nearly 10K by marketing the house ourselves and acting as our own seller’s agent). We hear the market is really coming back and it’s a great time to sell, so for anyone wondering, many other homes in our area seem to be getting contracts within a week or even a few days of listing them assuming they’re priced right and show nicely. So hopefully that’s good news for everyone!

We assumed we might end up selling our house to a reader who came to us through the blog, but hilariously enough, just like when we sold our first house, our buyer isn’t a blog reader and didn’t find out about our house because of our site at all. It was just coincidence (serendipity?) that we kept our Realtor in the loop and she happened to have a buyer looking for an updated one-level ranch like ours. So it might also be nice to hear that you definitely don’t need a blog to sell your house, although I’m sure the updates that we did certainly helped us sell it.

Kitchen Corner

So far this experience feels like a stark contrast to our first time selling a home back in 2010. That took us 14 showings over more than 3 weeks, and a variety of promotional attempts (craigslist, forsalebyowner.com, MLS, a sign out front, etc). It was stressful, but even then we were grateful that it didn’t drag on for months. So we certainly are counting our lucky stars for the speed at which things happened with this house! As of right now we’re planning to move to our new house in around three weeks. Holy cow, we better start packing!

Comments

  1. Courtney says

    This post makes me so excited! Seriously you guys are hilarious. I knew you wouldn’t have any trouble selling your house. Can’t wait to watch you do your magic on the new house!

    Reply

  2. Erin Port says

    I knew your home would sell FAST. You have done a beautiful job!!! Congrats and best wishes on packing with a 3 year old. We just did it and it was like shoveling while it was still snowing…nap time and bed time were essential to our success ;)!

    Reply

  4. Tamisha says

    Sherry and John,

    Congratulations! So excited for you. I know lots of realtors in the area and they are all saying that the inventory is way low and buyers are having trouble finding something. I’ve had a couple of friends lose houses even asking full price and several instances where houses are going $20 or $30K over asking.

    Congratulations! Can’t wait to see the progress in the new house. Very exiting and exhausting times ahead for you and your family.

    Reply

  6. Manda Miller says

    So exciting!! It is such a relief when you get that offer you can’t refuse!!

    We sold our house in 5 days and close at the end of May. We bought a fixer upper…trying not to panic about that..we are not “handy” at all but your blog has definitely inspired me to GO FOR IT!!

    Reply

  7. graduateliving says

    Congrats! What a sigh of relief, to not have to worry about two mortgages. Plus, these new buyers have a FANTASTIC house to move into – and more exciting project (I’m pumped to see how you guys approach the foyer/stairs!).

    Reply

  8. Christine says

    Congratulations on selling! You said your buyer wasn’t a reader, but I was wondering if you told them about the blog before they purchased and, if so, what they thought of that.

    ps – I think it’s worth it to buy the house just for the light fixtures! Can’t believe you’re leaving them all there!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Oh yes, we always disclose it to everyone on the first walk-through (with a sheet of paper with info, our book, etc). We just don’t want anyone to bid on a house and then be uncomfortable that it has been in magazines, online, and in a book. Everyone seems to like that fact though (doesn’t seem to be a deterrent) but it makes us feel better to clue everyone in the day they come for the first walk-through :)

      xo
      s

    • Olivia says

      I was wondering this too. Good call to disclose it right off the bat. I’m glad buyers don’t seem to mind! And congrats on selling it so quickly!!

  9. Adrianne D. says

    Holy Cow! I’m out of breath and dizzy just from reading this. Congratulations on the speed you went into contract. Good luck and I’ll keep my fingers crossed for a smooth closing and a further smooth move.

    Reply

  11. Christie N. says

    Oh my gosh! Congratulations!! I just cannot wait to see what y’all do with the new house! Much love to your little family!

    Reply

  12. Shauna says

    I’m not going to lie, I am so jealous of how fast and easy it all seems. We bought our first house about a month ago, and we looked forEVER (I swear I walked through 75 houses) and then the closing process took like two months. I am now too exhausted to decorate. ;)

    Congrats you guys, I LOVE your new house and I can’t wait to see the projects.

    Reply

  14. Barbara in CT says

    Congratulations. I knew I was being a bit cautious when I predicted two weeks.

    Now, for friends who are moving after 40+ years in the same house, could you share your To Do list?

    Interesting story–they efficiently changed the address on their credit cards right away but when prompted to enter your zip code on a gasoline pump, forgot and put in the old one. No go!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      So funny! Good thing to remember! As for our to-do list, it’s just some odd inspection items (fix a door that drags, rewire an outlet, etc) but we’ll definitely be sharing what we did to “show” our house (what we removed, what we changed, etc).

      xo
      s

  17. Callie says

    Huge congrats!! I can barely read it since our house went on the market just after yours…! But I’m so happy for you guys! We had an offer a couple days it went on the market but that offer ended up falling through. Today it looks like we might have one or two more offers, so hopefully!

    Also a question – at what point do you tell the interested person about your blog? I have a much much smaller blog, but I worry about it turning people off to the house (that photos of the house are on the internets, although of course not with the corresponding address or anything)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Aw thanks Callie! All the best with everything! As for disclosing the blog, on the first walk through we leave out a piece of paper explaining it along with photos, a URL, and even our book. Just don’t want anyone who buys to feel uncomfortable with “their house” in a book or online, even if it’s full of different furniture. In both cases of selling it didn’t seem to turn anyone off, but we felt a lot better getting it out there! Hope it helps!

      xo
      s

  18. ashley says

    Congrats! Question: I saw you said you’re planning to leave your curtains, most people do. But when I sold our last house, those suckers went with me. I spent a lot of time, money, & DIY energy on those guys. And who knew if I’d ever want to reuse them (just in case). I’m just curious why you guys decided to leave them behind, considering they may not match the new owner’s decor. It seems like a potential project wasted.
    I’ve just always wanted to ask someone that:)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We look at it the opposite way! We think it’s a waste to take them with us when we could have a new adventure hunting down/making new ones that fit the new house (instead of retrofitting curtains from the old house). The buyers like our house just as it is, and we hate to leave it looking any less lovely (we’re crazy, but the house is like a kid to us, so we don’t want to pillage it before we leave). We are bringing some sentimental ones (the curtain panels Clara picked herself for her big girl room and our favorite panels in the dining room) but other than that we’re excited to make/find new curtains that fit the new house (the number of windows in each room are different for the most part anyway).

      xo
      s

    • Ana says

      I wondered the same thing. And it depends on local custom/rules, too. In my area “window treatments” like blinds and custom drapery stay with the house, but it’s iffy on curtain panels. The curtain/drapery hardware would stay with the house since it’s screwed into the wall, but panels could go either way. I opted to take mine since my current house had really old disintegrating blinds and I needed something to ensure privacy while I saved up for better ones.

      Glad you guys sold so fast! The market’s really picking up in some places. The house behind mine was on the market for over a year starting in 2011. They took a break over the winter and just put it back on the market with a $10K price reduction and it’s already under contract. Yay new neighbors! (Actually no one has lived in the house the entire time I’ve been here, since 2009. So I’m excited for any neighbors at all.)

  19. janice says

    oh my gosh – the insanity of it all makes me want to cry ! Like for real, I’m teary eyed. I don’t know if it’s because I went through SUCH a nightmare selling almost 2 years ago (sold my house I had been renting out and also helped sell my parents whom I had been living with) we have TWO burgers (chihuahuas -Lisa and Pedro) and had to take them out for all showings which went on for MONTHS. SO it could be that and I’m reliving it a bit — or I’m super relieved for you guys. I’m not sure. Right now I’m a tangled mess of emotions from this post! lol

    Oh and HAPPY MOTHER’s Day Sherry!

    Reply

  20. Lauracinindy says

    So happy for you and excited about the next home. It’s much more of the style I like. Love to see what you’ll do to the yard

    Reply

  21. Joelle says

    Congrats – all of your hard work paid off. So happy for you guys and look forward to seeing what the next house brings!

    Reply

  22. Teresa says

    Computer freezes and flyer gone…that’s the worst but it all worked out. :) We are debating FSBO right not. We are worried about all the legal stuff. Would you be interested in a post on that? wink, wink!

    Reply

    • Callie says

      I’m FSBO’ing right now (hopefully for not much longer! Knock on wood!) and the only thing I’d add so far to J&S’s post is that people without a realtor in our area (Oklahoma) don’t always know how to go about the sale if we also don’t have a realtor. I talked to a friend who’s a realtor and he offered to follow all the paperwork through for both parties for 2% commission. I’m thinking of taking him up on that because we don’t have closing attorneys here and a real estate lawyer might miss something if they’re not used to handling closings. 2% seems fair for peace of mind, considering that if the buyer does have a realtor we’re probably paying 3% for them. Just my barely-experienced two cents!

  23. Ashley G says

    That is so exciting! I’m so happy it worked out.

    I’m hoping your sell-the-house juju gets passed on to us – we have a contract on our dream home, but need to sell ours first – we’ve had some showings but no offers yet (but we’re in northern NH, so the market is a bit slower up here!).

    Reply

  27. Janie says

    Congrats on selling your house. I knew your house would go fast and I have to admit I’m going to miss it. I really loved every update you did. Now comes the hard part – all that packing, plus Clara upcoming birthday party! Hope all goes well! I feel I know you all of you (including Burger) from reading your blog every day and wish you all the very best!

    Janie

    Reply

  28. Lauren (in PA) says

    Boy! I knew it would go quick, but that is crazy!

    Congrats and can’t wait to see what’s in store for your new home!

    Reply

  29. Sarah says

    Wow. That is so very fast! Of course, I’m not surprised that someone wanted it quickly because of all the killer things you’ve done with it. (But even so, that’s crazy awesome fast!)

    Reply

  30. Jessica M says

    Congratulations! Will really miss seeing photos of the house but am really looking forward to watching you all make the new house look just a great!

    Reply

  32. Lisa says

    Congrats! I work at law firm in CT where I do all the real estate closings, and I am seeing a lot of 5% commissions, so 2.5% split. Is that an option for you guys or is it strict 6%?

    Reply

  33. Danielle says

    Congrats!! Your hard work has paid off! Now it’s on to your budding dream home, a continuous stream of DIYs, home improvement raps, and lots more memories! Cheers!

    Reply

  34. Cheri K. says

    Congrats! I really love what you have done with this house, but very excited to see what you do with the new one!

    Reply

  37. LMN says

    Congrats!! Do you think if you waited then you might get more than the asking price? Just curious from a buying/selling perspective. Totally excited though bc I’m in love with new place! :-)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      I think since their offer was so strong (putting a ton of cash down at closing) it makes any loan issues near closing a lot less likely (sometimes a week before closing something falls thorough). So to sell for 2K under our price to someone with so much cash to put down was worth the peace of mind I think!

      xo
      s

  39. Courtney says

    Holy crap that made me nauseous and sick to my stomach just thinking about the stress of that 36 hour window!!
    Sherry must have been on hyper-drive with the stress/nerves/too excited to eat/ three walks in a day!

    Major congrats and props! Hope you can get some more sleep in around all of the packing/inspections/moving/new house projects. OMG

    Reply

  40. Rachel says

    The housing market is really hot right now in Ann Arbor, too. Houses are selling before they officially go on the market, there are bidding wars and most houses are going for more than their asking price. I actually have a friend who just bid on (and got) a house sight unseen. They had been waiting for a house in the right neighborhood and they pounced as soon as it came on the market.

    Reply

    • Elizabeth says

      Oh wow, that’s interesting! We had a condo that didn’t sell for 2 years (Pittsfield Village) b/c of the financial crisis in 2008, no financing for co-ops at that price point… once they went from co-op to condo we sold before it even was re-listed again, full price offer, before the buyer even got in the unit. I followed that A2 market for those two years and prices went hugely down. Interesting that they are going back up again… we were personally priced out of the market for a decent home there, which is one reason we moved back to NC. (Though we could have bought in Ypsi, I think.)

  42. Charlotta says

    Congratulations!
    It’s interesting to read about the house selling/buying business in the US since it’s so different from what usually happens where I live (in Sweden)! When we bought our house two years ago there were two public showings and we went to the last one (which was really crowded with pregnant women and kids all ages everywhere!). The bidding had already begun… it took two nerv-wrecking weeks of bidding and waiting for the others to make their moves before the house was ours. I get anxious just thinking about it.

    Reply

  43. GreenInOC says

    Wow! That read like an action sequence and I was on the edge of my seat reading the details (yes, know the title spilled the beans but I got so engulfed in the post I forgot all about that!)!!

    Congratulations! Here’s to a smooth packing experience and an even faster & easier unpacking!

    Reply

  45. CM says

    Congratulations!!

    The homeowner in me is doing a fist pump at how quickly you sold your house. And the lawyer in me is thinking you could have negotiated them up to your asking price… :)

    It’s funny, your house is the opposite of most places. Instead of needing to look past the ugliness and think about the place’s potential, your buyers probably needed to look past the beauty and think about what it would look like once they moved in with their own stuff and their own level of decorating skills.

    Reply

  46. Michelle says

    This is my first time to read your blog. I’ve seen your book and heard all great things about y’all in “blogland.”

    This is how it went down when we sold our house 6 years ago…in Texas. We had three offers in less than 48 hours and sold our home for $60,000 more than we originally paid for it 5 years previously. We KNEW God was in on the plan and we were meant to move.

    Congratulations! :)

    Reply

  47. Pip says

    Congratulations! What a quick result! I guess it’s really real then … Goodbye clothespin chandelier, farewell potato print closet (sniffle). Can’t wait for the new house adventures!

    Reply

  48. Chelsea @ Riding Escalators says

    YAY!!! Congrats guys! When we bought just two years ago it was definitely still a buyer’s market – but things have definitely flipped since then! We’re hoping that it’s still a seller’s market when we go to sell in 4 years! And hopefully by then we’ll have finished renovating the place (fingers crossed…!)!

    Reply

  49. Deanna says

    AWESOMESAUCE! Sounds like you’d better start teaching Clara and Burger how to work that tape gun–you need to start assembling boxes STAT! :)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Haha! We definitely plan to do a post about how much we put into the house vs. how much extra we got back when we sold! We did that with our first house and it was fun to examine :)

      xo
      s

    • Devon @ Green House, Good Life says

      When you do that, will it be possible to only consider what you spent on stuff that stays with the house (e.g., desk and painting/stenciling in the office but not the furnishings/accessories)? I understand if that would take too long to separate out for each room, but it would be interesting to see.

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Oh yes, we’ll share how much we spent on things that stay (full kitchen reno, built in desk, patio, deck, etc). We won’t count things like the dining table since that comes with us :)

      xo
      s

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