Several months ago I decided to chronicle our home selling process. I am a real estate broker, but even for me, there are no shortcuts in this process. We have now shifted into another phase so let me update you. We have cleaned, cleaned and cleaned some more. We have painted, repaired and landscaped. We have done everything that we can to prep the house and make it sparkly. Every seller needs to do this step before placing their home on the market. For some it is quick, for others, it’s a long process but one that must be done. Think of it as cleansing the soul of your house to prepare it for its next chapter.

The fun for me began when I could concentrate on marketing. I love this part! I wrote the script, edited it and wrote it again (with the help of friends). The professional photographer was brought out, the photos selected, uploaded and labeled. A video was created and now the website is up and running. Ads were submitted to magazines. Last Thursday, it went live in the Multiple Listing Service. It is now out there for the whole world to see! How exciting!

If you are selling a house in town under $300,000, you will now have people knocking on your door. When you are selling a house out in the county for over $400,000 (like we are), the process isn’t as quick. It’s just the facts and again, there are no shortcuts. This is day 6 and so far we have had one drive-by that we know of. We did not invite them in as showing the house is my co-brokers job. That is what I hired her for and even I need to stick to our game plan. We have had agents call, asking questions for their clients. We have had some web inquiries. Overall, I’m pretty excited for the first not quite week on the market.

The hard part is what comes next. We don’t really want to rent as having 3 dogs makes that difficult. We might buy a cheap little house that needs work and live in that while we build a home. That means finding the right cheap little house and the right building lot. If the location and house are just right, we aren’t against buying an existing house and turning it into the perfect home. We have started looking but without a time frame, it’s hard to look seriously since what’s on the market now may not be available when we are ready to start that step of the process. We are flexible and Don and I work well under pressure. We have a plan A, plan B, C, D, and E for what comes next. We have options and really, this is a good position for a seller to be in as it prevents rash decisions.