Getting the House Ready to Sell

My husband and I have been talking about selling our house and moving closer to our adult daughters who live in the Carolinas – one in North Carolina and the other in South Carolina. We’ve been in Florida for quite a while, and I know I’ll miss it here. However, the pull to our daughters is much stronger than the tropical climate.

So we started talking about all the things we needed to do. First, we went online and checked out housing in South Carolina – the state we chose because the climate is more similar to where we are – and we liked what we saw. Next, we talked with our realtor and friend who said she thought we could do well in today’s housing market. Whew! At least that has turned around.

Our house right after we got the new roof.

And then we took a long look around at what we need to do to get our house ready for sale. It’s painfully obvious that we have a ton of work to do. For the past 10-1/2 years we have truly lived in this house. We’ve spread out, kept things we thought we might need someday, and then forgot about them. Wally and I each have our own stashes of things that mean something to us – things we don’t need but want to keep anyway. I think that’s fine, but we know we have to get the stuff out of the way so potential buyers won’t turn around and run, thinking they’re on an episode of “Hoarders.” Actually, we’re not really that bad, but no one would ever mistake our house for a model home. That said, we have a clean house with mostly neutral colors, so it shouldn't be difficult for people to imagine placing their own things here.

Whoever buys our house will benefit from all the things we’ve had to do over the past couple of years. First, we replaced our old water heater two years ago. Earlier this year we had a new 50-year roof installed. And then this month we got a new central air and heat unit. Those are costly items that we hope buyers will consider when shopping for their next home.