When we decided to sell, it was a pretty quick decision.
We knew we eventually would have to move because of my new commute time (yahhh Atlanta traffic), but things were going well - I was working from home a lot and had an awesomely flexible schedule. It wasn't so bad.
Then the market went BOOM. Real Estate has recovered on the north side of the perimeter (for locals North OTP; for non-locals the Northern Suburbs outside Atlanta Metro).
Things were selling QUICK. We saw prices in our neighborhood going up and up and up. So we said, 'why not?'.
We fixed up some of those 90% projects - and then listed.
3 showings later we had our first offer, which we countered and then agreed upon.
Our house was sold (barring a few obstacles after the fact we worked through) with almost 17.5% appreciation in 3 years. Pretty awesome right?
Our outside listing picture:
It looks a touch purple in the saturation, but apparently it didn't make a difference. We had 12 showings in 3 days before we went officially under contract.
Then came the hard part - finding a new house. Under a time crunch - the purchasers of our current house wanted to move in ASAP - by the end of June.
Some of the houses we looked at (actual viewings are about triple - around 33 houses).
(Not numbered as above - those are just some of the houses we've viewed)
We offered on House #1 - While a great option it failed out on inspection - huge issues with the foundation, erosion and structural soundness.
We offered on House #2 - And withdrew because of multiple offers and a bidding war.
We offered on House #3 - and withdrew because of multiple offers and a bidding war.
We offered on House #4 (viewed on the same day as House #3) - Accepted and failed upon inspection - again issues with the foundation, moisture damage on 90% of the siding
All that and House #4's negotiations all occurred while we were out of the country - coordinating inspections and countering fix requests on limited data plans.
And so the deadline to find something passed. We said 'f&#k it' and acquiesced to living in an apartment short term. We had 15 days after we got back from Canada to pack up EVERYTHING and get it done.
Two words: We procrastinate.
I made a plan, a list, a schedule of what to pack when - we were good about it for like 3 days then sank into old habits. I had 2 business trips in that 15 day period. Needless to say there was a final flurry of packing on moving day. We made it - barely.
The weekend following our move into the apartment we started up our search again.
And found House #5. That we opened negotiations on because it ticked almost every damn box of 'need-to-have' and 'nice-to-have' in our price range. It wasn't perfect - but it was pretty close. Only the owners were not interested in negotiating. And that was that.
So we thought about it - and we brought our offer up to ALMOST list. We are now under contract with them.
Next up - the inspection. We are crossing our fingers and toes and tongues.
The wonderful things about House #5:
- 5 Bedrooms and a Huge upstairs Bonus Room
- A Finished Basement (without a drop ceiling)
- an upgraded kitchen (while not completely our style, it's still pretty nice)
- a main floor bedroom and full bathroom
- newer appliances
- back stairs (I'm weird)
- a downstairs playroom
- large living room
-formal living room (we will use for library/office)
- main floor garage
- good size secondary bedrooms
- hardwoods on main level
- main floor laundry
- so much space I'm kind of a little scared of being able to keep it all clean
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