Disassembly Required

I have a Realtor now. Jan Thornton, who has been sending promotional notepads several times a year (how we got on her list, I have no idea). I have been using them for my web design, as they are just the right size upon which to put lists of code snippets, image lists, hexidecimal color values, etc.

She's a seasoned professional, and I felt immediately at home with her. She had done all her homework (even pulling the court filing for the probate petition) and brought an excellently presented packet with all the realty information I could want about my place, comps in the area, sales trends, etc. We spent about an hour and a half touring the house, her sharp eye pointing out positives and negatives about the place and suggesting things to improve the value of the property.

One of the things that impressed me most about her was she asked about Steve, how he died, and even asked if I thought that a prolonged death was better than an unexpected one (a friend of hers lost her husband when he was hit by a car just walking down the street one morning). People are so hesitant to speak about death, but she knew this was the reason I was selling. She left me with the info packet and several numbers of painters and contractors she uses regularly.

One of the things she was stressing was remove just about everything from the house. I had planned on taking out extraneous pieces of furniture, but she was saying take down everything on the walls except a very few generic pieces. She explained that house hunters have a habit of looking at the things in a home, and this distracts them from looking at the space itself. She really made a lot of sense.

When we arranged the appointment, I told her that the place was messy because I was decluttering, and to expect nothing immaculate (I'm in the final stages of getting Steve's things donated or trashed). But after hearing her talk, I realize that I have to go through the whole process again, clearing out things I want to keep (my precious stuff!) in order to prep the place for open houses, etc.

Actually, it does make sense to move all the stuff out before the painters and contractors descend to do their work. But after all the emotional turmoil of culling through Steve's stuff, now I have to box up what little is left of him that I decided to keep. With a sinking feeling, I realized I was stripping down our only home, painting it up like a whore and putting it on the auction block. I sense another emotional wall approaching: the sale and release of this special place may be more difficult than I thought.

So next week the contractors will start coming by, checking work to be done and providing quotes. One of the first things she said was, "You need to get rid of the popcorn ceilings, some people don't mind them, but lots of people hate them and will write off your place, no matter how great it looks." I said I thought that was a lot of work and would be expensive. "Oh, no," she said, brushing my concern away with her hand. "They just put everything in the middle of the room and clean them off before they start painting; no problem."

I was most pleased to find that the comps for similar properties were at or above what I was expecting to list this place for. Also, she said there are only about half the normal number of condos on the market in Pasadena right now, which makes it a strong seller's market, and prices are supposed to rise by 7.5% this year, so we may list the place well above what I thought my asking price was.

So I'm taking a few days off to visit the Central Coast, but I'll be back in time to collect the information Jan's compiling for the improvements. June, we hope, will see the beginning of this process. Once I have an idea of the cost of improvements, I'll stop by the bank and pull the needed cash from my personal line of credit, which will then become an part of escrow when the place sells.

My goodness gracious; it's just one adventure after another these days.