Kids Ain't Cheap

But They Sure Are Worth It

Yaaaa, We Sold Our House… We Hope

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Since the house sold, we don't need these for-sale signs anymore

Copyright Andy Beecroft and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons License.

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time you may have read one of the posts about the years we spent fixing our credit, the months we spent slaving away fixing up our house and getting it ready for the market and then finally listing it for sale. It’s only been on the market for 2 months but all that work paid off. I am very happy to report that we have accepted an offer on our house and will close in time for Harrison to start Kindergarten in our new school district.

That was a big concern of ours. Harrison isn’t as sociable as his younger brother and we really didn’t want to have to start him in one school district and then pull him out and have him finish in another school. I know at that age it’s not a big deal but as parents, we didn’t want it. We wanted Harrison to start on even footing with the rest of the kids.

In this current housing marketing, we couldn’t be happier with how quickly our house sold. We live in a semi-detached house on a busy road. It’s a great starter home but still, being right on a major road, we had our work cut out for us which is why we put so much effort into getting it to look as good as it possibly can. Based on the feedback we received from the people who walked through the house, it definitely paid off.

When we got the news the house was sold

What was even more special is when we got the news. We were on vacation with my wife’s family when our Realtor called. We were down in North Carolina at the Outer Banks. It was great, throughout the week people came and went but most of the immediate family was there. Her Mom, her sister, her sisters children, her cousins, her aunts and uncles, it was great. Some husbands would find that to be a nightmare but I love her family and get along quite well with them. My own parents didn’t get along with their in-laws and I always hated it. When I met my wife I told her pretty early on I wouldn’t get serious with anyone if I couldn’t get along with their family. Luckily for both of us, we both get along with each others family splendidly.

So, what does that have to do with us selling our house? Well, we are buying my Mother-In-Laws house and what is even more special is most of the houses in the area are the relatives we were on vacation with. Stephanie comes from a good farming family. They aren’t all farmers but some of them bought pieces of the farm property and built houses so they all live on beautiful pieces of property surrounded by loved ones and country landscape. We got to immediately celebrate the news with the person we were buying the house from and our new neighbors all at once. It was great and everyone was so excited.

I can’t wait to move on to this next chapter of our lives. Let’s just hope everything goes smoothly with settlement.

Have you ever sold a house? What was your experience with it?

The House is Finished, WooHoo

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Vintage Triang dolls house cleaning suppliesIf you’ve noticed, I’ve been a little quiet lately.  It’s  because we are finally done working on the house and as of this week it is officially on the market.  Our house has never looked this good and I have lived here for 9 years now.  It’s not to say we didn’t work on it in those 9 years but life always seemed to get in the way of this house realizing it’s full potential.

We worked our butts off over the last 2 months and we are very proud with what we have accomplished.  We worked together as a family and it really looks impressive.  Part of me regrets that it took us this long to get this house looking this way but a much bigger part of me is ready to move on to our next adventure.  We can feel good that we will be selling someone a starter home that is in wonderful condition.

The Realtor had a photographer come through and take pictures today so as soon as they are posted I will post them here.

Have you ever sold a house? What did you do to prepare?

Almost There…. Almost There…. I Hope!

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For Sale Sign for HouseFor the last couple of months my wife and I have been working very hard to get our house ready to sell. I mentioned in an earlier blog post that we are are buying my Mother-In-Law’s house. It’s where my wife grew up and it’s surrounded by her family and their family farm. I can’t wait. I love the property and get along with her family very well.

A lot of work involved in preparing a home for sale

Unfortunately, our house is old and had 30 different projects we either started or meant to start to improve it. We really felt like most of these projects needed to be done so the house was the best we could make it before we put it up for sale. Unfortunately, it seems like every time we finished a project, it created 5 more either because they needed to be done or fixing one thing broke another thing.

It’s been a real struggle with real challenges that needed to be overcome. We both work full time and want to make sure we get in as much quality family time as we can with the kids. I have 3 herniated discs, one of which is really bad, so I have to be very careful about what I lift and make sure I don’t overdue it. And of course, we needed to get all these projects done on a strict budget. We had some big ticket items that were unavoidable like a new roof and new gutters so we tried our best to do all of the work that we could do ourselves.

I am happy to say that we are almost done. Another good weekends worth of effort and I think we can finally call the realtor and get this house on the market. Let’s just hope that after all this hard work and money, it sells quickly and at a good price.

Have you ever prepared a home for sale? How much work did you have to do to get it ready?

Busy, Busy, Busy!

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I'm busyI feel like I have been AWOL from my own web site lately!  Things have been just a bit insane and I have had no time to post.  My day job has grown increasingly busier and I am only half way through my massive list of to-do’s on my house.  Thankfully I have some great writers that have picked up the slack.

I should probably catch you up since I haven’t really blogged about this all that much.  My wife grew up right next to her families farm on a beautiful piece of property.  The house that is on that property is only “okay” but it’s built well and the property more than makes up for what might currently be lacking there.  We have been rather unhappy with our current house and neighborhood for awhile now but with our financial situation being what it was/is, we haven’t been able to afford to do anything about it.

Our 5 year plan

Three and half years ago, we came up with a 5 year plan to get out of debt and buy the family house my wife grew up in.  We have been working very hard, cutting every corner and putting every extra penny we could to get out of debt.  We didn’t get in debt because we were trying to keep up with friends and neighbors, we got in debt trying to survive while one of my previous businesses failed around us.  It’s  been hard on all of us, especially my wife, but it made us stronger than we ever thought we could be and we attacked it as a team.

The results so far?  We are ahead of the curve on our goal and our credit has bounced back much sooner than expected.  My credit is almost back to the best it’s ever been and my wife’s is closely behind.  We are finally in a position where we can afford to explore the idea of selling our current house and buy that dream house.  It’s noting fantastic, it’s a 1500 square foot ranch house but as previously mentioned, the property is amazing and the house has a ton of potential.  Our plan is to sell our current house, buy this house and spend the next 20 years turning it into the house we know it can be.

The first step

The first step towards achieving that goal is to get our house ready to sell.  As everyone knows, the market is not very good right so we want to give ourselves the best opportunity to sell this house at a good price by making it the best it can be.  It’s kind of sad to say but the house looks better today than it ever looked before and we are only half way through our list of things to do before listing it.  It’s kind of sad that we were finally motivated to really make this house shine only so we can sell it but I guess that is just how it goes.

So that is what I have been up to.  It’s going to be crazy for us for the next couple of months but I am very hopeful that it will payoff.  I know my two boys will LOVE growing up in the country with all that farm and family around us.

What have you been up to lately?