Home Business?

With everything I've learned with selling and buying houses this year, and my interest in Home Staging, I'm percolating an idea about starting a new small business. Not sure how it would work - but....



My idea is to look at the photos and listings for houses, and work with realtors and home owners to better present the home. Maybe to connect with several realtors and have the service included.

HOUSE SOLD - HOUSE BOUGHT!

Well, the crunch is definitely on!  Last Wednesday our buyers took all conditions off of their purchase of our house, which means the sale of our house is definitely going thru.  Then, after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing Grant and I sent an email to our Realtor removing the conditions on the purchase of the new house.  So - that means we are definitely buying the house on Hillside Avenue in Nanaimo.  We know there are going to be a lot of adjustments necessary for us moving from a country acreage with a house that we've basically designed and built ourselves, to a city lot with an already built house.  Luckily we are doing some renos right away, which will help to make it feel more like ours.  It will be interesting to see how we adapt - whether we like it or feel way too cramped and feel the need to move on in a year or two or three.

Today is August 16th - we have possession of the new house on September 18th - just over a month.  Having the week overlap will really help, as we can get moved in and come back here to get final things and clean up.  Sometime this week I'm going to get an estimate for a small moving company to give an estimate - I'm interested mostly in furniture and appliances, as I think most everything else should fit in the Big Metal Box.  Which reminds me - I need to make arrangements to have the Box moved on the 18th!  Shouldn't be a problem as they move it with a tow truck. Hopefully the weather for our move will be dry - as I know we may have to have some boxes outside until we get things organized.

And more things to organize for the move - which I didn't really have to do for the move here from Lethbridge 8 years ago.  Not just cancelling utilities, but starting things up at the new place, and also new.  May also look at changing telephone over to Shaw if that is a savings

Kasia will be confused but she will be easier to move than the cats.  We are rather concerned about the cats, especially George - who is away a lot.  Might be a bit better in a few weeks when the weather cools down. 

New HOUSE!

Well, things are moving quickly now!  Thursday I found a house on mls.ca that I showed to Heather & Grant - both liked it.  Also found another in Cinnabar that seemed good.  Friday morning when I called Carol I found out the Cinnabar one had sold already - wow, that was fast! So yesterday Grant took some time from work and met me at McDonald's at Rutherford and we drove together to the house, which is just off of Uplands on Hillview Avenue.  First time in for both of us - generally Grant was more impressed than I was, but overall I was pleased with it.  Once we got home I started rethinking everything - like where is everything going to go?  Anyhow, we scheduled another viewing of the house for 9:30 this morning so Heather could be with us.  We also had our Japanese student with us.  We looked at everything very, very carefully, inside and out, then looked AGAIN to make sure we didn't miss anything.  We know what we want to change immediately, and what we want to work on gradually.  The plan is to have Heather in the single attached garage, which we will turn into her bedroom while she is still with us - then when she moves out we will open it up to the living room and make a large living/sitting room.  We know it needs colour, and I want the cupboards changed from grey to dark brown until we can redo the kitchen - to hickory.  And we also - mostly Heather - just came up with the idea of opening up the den to the bottom of the stairs.

Anyhow - we offered on the house this afternoon while we were still in the house, Carol emailed us the offer, we signed it and faxed it back to her.  A few minutes ago she phoned with the sellers verbal counter offer - which we just countered.  We will see where we end up, but it looks pretty obvious that we will be moving in there on September 17th, and officially out of here on the following Saturday, September 24th.

Will keep 'posted'!

HOUSE SOLD!

Well - we are no longer in 'House for Sale LIMBO'!  Last Monday, July 19th, we sold our house - relatively quickly, actually. Our realtor came over about 6:30pm or so, presented the offer, we countered, they countered - we accepted!  It was over by about 9pm!  It is conditional til August 5th for them to get House Inspection, Septic check, water check, and a 1st Mortgage (which they are already approved for) - I'm not expecting any problems, but we know it is not 99% until all the conditions are off.  This coming week I will need to make sure I am home when the Home Inspector comes...

House for sale - posting from early July:

HOME FOR SALE - Cedar/Yellowpoint area 2+ acres and large family home!


We've been for sale on MLS since late April - sure hope it sells soon! Check out our online listing at http://www.mls.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=9459027



I'm wondering what more we can do to get our great house noticed? Should we contemplate putting up 'Vancouver Island HOUSE FOR SALE' signs someplace?



It is really not much fun being 'in limbo' which is what being FOR SALE definitely feels like!