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How We Sold Our House in One Day

This post started off as a simple “tips to sell your house quickly” post…but then it just couldn’t stop writing and it kinda turned into a brain dump on everything. So keep reading if you want to hear about how we sold our house in a day (for over the asking price!), how much profit we made, the final house tour, and other various thoughts on the subject.

So as you may have guessed from the title, we sold our house is a day, which is crazy. What’s is even crazier is that we had multiple offers, one for full price and one for over asking (and one offer for even higher a few days later).

How we sold our house in one day

There are two reasons I think it sold so quickly (besides luck and having a great realtor)…

It showed well – Adam and I worked our butts off to clean it up and make it shine. We had running checklists of every little detail that needed attention and worked on it for months. I’m not even kidding, it kinda sucked.

Timing – We had planned to list our house in the spring (peak time), and then a giant hailstorm hit and devastated the neighborhood. Adam and I scrambled to fix everything the hail had damaged (roof, windows, landscaping, etc.) so we could list it ASAP. Because we hustled we were able to list the house when there weren’t really any other options available, and I believe this was the main reason I believe we sold quickly and for full price. So that stupid, stressful hailstorm that we cursed for it’s terrible timing actually turned out really well for us (on both houses).

So while I can’t tell you a magic foolproof formula that will guarantee great results, I can tell you a few things that I think helped us get multiple offers the first day on the market.

Finish all the little things you’ve been putting off

You know the things I’m talking about. That piece of trim you replaced three years ago but never painted? Paint it. The threshold on the floor that came off and has since turned your flooring transitions into crumb gutters? Replace it. The front sidewalk that needs pressure washing something fierce….FIX IT ALL. These kind of things don’t cost a lot of money to fix, they are mostly sweat equity and it is absolutely worth it to fix them. You may have stopped seeing these things because you’ve gotten so used to them, but buyers will notice. If you need to bring in a friend or family member to walk through and point out all the little things they notice and make a list, do it. Adam and I spent weeks, maybe even months, fixing all these little things. We do a ton of DIY projects (obviously) and we are really bad about finishing them 100% of the way. We usually get to about 90%, get bored, and move onto the next thing. So our punishment for ignoring all the finishing touches and maintenance was months of just doing these monotonous tasks. It was not fun, especially while also working on the new house and trying not to neglect our three boys . After it was all said and done though our house looked amazing, and I wished I had been keeping up with it all along.

Purge (even the places you don’t think buyers will look, because they will)

If there was ever a time to purge the many things you have accumulated over the years, moving is it. You are going to touch everything you own anyway, might as well be brutally honest about the things you actually use and love, and ditch the rest. This will not only make packing easier, but also make selling easier. If buyers open your closet (they will) and see it stuffed to the brim they will automatically think the house doesn’t have enough storage. On the other hand, if they open up your closet and it is 50% full and neatly organized they will think that if they buy this house they will be organized too. It’s not true, but it doesn’t matter…lie to them and pretend you have your ducks in a row and are effortlessly neat. Then take all their money and run.

Make your house look staged

The easiest way I’ve found to do this (well, not the easiest, the most effective) is to completely empty a room and put things back one item at a time until it looks perfectly staged and semi-empty. Everything that didn’t make it back into the room goes into storage (not storage in your house or on your property, storage somewhere else). I know this sounds like a ton of work, but you’re moving anyway…might as well get an early start by getting some of your stuff out. A big bonus to this is that by semi-emptying your house it will be that much easier to keep clean for showings.

Clean

This one pretty much goes without saying…scrub that thing from top to bottom and make it shine.

Take your family photos down

I feel like this one may be taken the wrong way, but hear me out. When a buyer walks through your home you want them to picture them living there. You want them to look around and think “I could put my couch here, and my grandmothers china cabinet would look great over there….” The last thing you want them to be thinking about it you, the seller. So if you have an entire hallway dedicated to family photos (I did) take it down and just have a nice, empty hallway or wall. You don’t need to strip the house of every bit of personalization, but keep in mind that selling your house isn’t about you, it’s about the buyer.

One thing I DIDN’T do….

One thing I didn’t do that professionals recommend is paint my house neutral colors. The majority of my house was green, and there was no way I was repainting the whole thing. I figured my house would be quirky no matter what (with the planked walls, penny countertop, two-toned painted cabinets, rock wall, etc) so whether the walls were green or tan didn’t really matter.

 

Alright, now let’s get to the part everyone os wondering about, the numbers. So how much did we make on our house after living in and working on it for nearly eight years?

Well, we bought our house in 2008 for $133,500

We put about $30,000 into updating (including a carport/garage, fence, flooring, kitchen and bathrooms, everything)

We sold our house for $210,500

Total profit – $47,000

A little over four years ago we paid off our house, so after closing fees and all that fun stuff we walked away with a check for roughly $196,000. We will add a bit of our savings to that and put it down at closing on the new house (which cross your fingers is soon, because the construction loan is getting crazy expensive at this point). I know y’all are curious how much building the new house cost, and I do plan to share that information once we close and have all the numbers in front of us.

And now, the final house tour. Here she is all cleaned out and ready for the new owners.

Final house tour - kitchen and living room

the final house tour - kitchen 2

The final house tour - Kitchen

the final house tour - dining room

the final house tour - living room

the final house tour - living room 2

the final house tour - master bedroom

the final house tour - master bathroom

the final house tour - laundry room

the final house tour - guest bedroom

the final house tour - boys bedroom

the final house tour - boys bathroom

(If you want to see the house with stuff in it you can see my HOUSE TOUR page, and for before pics GO HERE.)

Here is a video of me walking the house for the last time…

Seeing it like this was a little bittersweet. Mostly I was super relieved to finally be at the point of saying goodbye to our house. It’s been a stressful year, and finally crossing this giant hurdle off our list felt really good. Somehow we actually finished our massive to-do list for the house, got more money than we thought we would for it, and managed to pack up and get all out all our stuff out (which is no easy task with three little boys and seven months pregnant). I literally felt lighter on that final day, knowing that from here on out we only had one house to work on. At the same time, saying goodbye to a house that we put so much into and bought our babies home to wasn’t easy. And leaving a perfectly clean, finished, and (most importantly) paid off house for an unfinished pile of work with a mortgage made me feel a little crazy. Perhaps we are a little crazy, but either way we’re onto the next adventure. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

sold house in one day

 

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23 Comments

  1. Congratulations on the sale of your home and happy moving to your new home! I’ve enjoyed reading along on your journey!

  2. We are prepping to sell, too. You’re not alone in all of this. We have done more to our house in the last eight days than I have in the last eight years here. And, man, how did I end up with so much crap over the years?! I feel sorry for our trash man for the next few weeks. It also really makes you think about what you move into the next house. “Wow, I used that blender/chopper/grinder/Ninja thing-y once in the last eight years and just wiped an inch of dust off of it. Let’s pack it up and move it to the next house!” NOT! Congrats on the quick sell! Keep your fingers crossed for us.

  3. I love reading your posts and I’m very happy for you! We are in a house that needs a lot of work and honestly I just feel overwhelmed when I watch HGTV type shows. But your posts are very down to earth and seem doable! I have three kids too so getting stuff done 15 minutes at a time at duting nap time is key.

  4. So I read all through every single post when I found your blog to be helpful on something now forgotten. Your hard work is admirable, and I wish you well in your new home. But…. didn’t you paint those bathroom tiles white??!!??

        1. Yes that’s correct, I only painted the master. No one ever used the shower in the boys bathroom (not even the boys) so the tiles didn’t bother me.

  5. Congratulations and I hope that you will be even happier in your new home. I am in awe of all the hard work that you & your husband have put in these houses. I always look forward to your posts to see what else you have accomplished.

  6. Congratulations! What an accomplishment. Ya’ll should be very proud of yourselves. Tons of work paid off. I can’t believe you did it pregnant and with 3 little tikes running around! Ya’ll rock and it looks great!

  7. I kinda wanna stumble upon a blog that is redoing your old house haha – not that I don’t like it the way you did (not at all, I think it’s awesome!) but it would interest me what other people would do differently and why.

  8. I can’t believe you did everything you did to that house for only $30k! Just the outside stuff seems like more than that. Hooray for sweat equity! You should be really, really proud of everything you’ve done.

  9. Well done!!! Congratulations and all the best in your new home Ashley!!! I love reading your posts, you have a beautiful family!! Enjoy it all!

  10. You know what’s funny, We have sold 2 houses in 10 years. I had anything but neutral colors, and both times the buyer complimented the color scheme of the house. So…I say, as long is it’s done tastefully…no need to paint them all neutral. I know “tastefully” has different meanings for everyone. ;)

  11. I wrote a big comment the day you posted this and my computer erased it, grr!
    Congratulations on selling your home so quickly, and above the asking price to boot. What a great feeling!
    I can see how it’s bittersweet though. When I moved from a home like that once, I actually wrote a letter to the house, going over the memories and releasing it, wishing the new owners well. When I first heard of that it seemed pretty new-agey to me but it really did help.
    You’ve left such an imprint on this house. When I look at the pictures, I can tell which room each one is, even though they are empty. That’s impressive! When you think of most homes, builder grade, unless they have significant architectural elements, the rooms look pretty much the same. You’ve left a beautiful shell for the next family to fill and be sheltered by.
    On to new adventures! Starting again with a mortgage and lots of projects, but this time you have many gorgeous architectural elements to provide an even more striking backdrop for your creativity and hard work. And new memories to make!

  12. “If buyers open your closet (they will) and see it stuffed to the brim they will automatically think the house doesn’t have enough storage. On the other hand, if they open up your closet and it is 50% full and neatly organized they will think that if they buy this house they will be organized too. It’s not true, but it doesn’t matter…lie to them and pretend you have your ducks in a row and are effortlessly neat. Then take all their money and run.”

    I read the mommy blogs here and there, and I gotta tell ya girl, that’s the realest and the best damn quote I think I ever done read. You go, girl!

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