The Money Pit

Tom Petty sang it best. I think he was singing about waiting to see his lover again, but his observation also aptly applies to real estate.

The waiting is not only the hardest part of selling a house, it’s pretty much the ONLY part. You stick a sign in the yard and wait for a potential buyer. When a buyer looks, you wait for feedback. When the feedback is good, you wait for the offer. In my case, for two years I waited for one potential buyer after another, and even waited for an offer a couple times, but no such luck. Just more waiting. Month after month. Waiting. Season after season. Waiting.

Finally this week … WOO-HOO! The offer came! Hallelujah!!

The waiting is over, right?!?

Wrong.

I have been waiting all day for someone to give me a quote on a termite bond so I can submit an informed counteroffer.

Tomorrow I’ll wait for a response to my counteroffer.

Even if all goes well and they accept, I still won’t be done waiting. I’ll wait a couple weeks for the buyers’ bank approval. Then I’ll wait some more for the inspection. I’ll wait for the report. I’ll wait for FHA inspection. I’ll wait for FHA approval. Then I’ll wait for a closing time.

When the day of closing finally arrives, I’m sure we’ll do some last-minute waiting in the lobby and probably a little more in the boardroom while the final Ts get crossed and Is get dotted.

The tentative closing date is set for May 9. That’s 50 more days of intense waiting.

It has been brought to my attention that for some, waiting is not a big deal. Some speak of a mystical, Zen-like state they refer to as “patience.” After two years of waiting, with this patience, I’m told, 50 days should be easy.

Unfortunately you cannot run out and buy patience at Target, and there is no pill to achieve instant patience — at least not without also achieving semi-unconsciousness. I’m sure there are self-help books on the subject, but who can wait to wade through all that? I need patience NOW!

I’m sure many of you reading this could just calmly wait out the 50 days, doing whatever it is that you calm people do. But we’re talking about a gal whose favorite phrase is: I can’t wait!

I can’t wait for the weekend. I can’t wait to have a glass of wine. I can’t wait to see a show. I can’t wait to go out of town. I can’t wait for pretty weather. I can’t wait for dinner. I can’t wait to see my family. I can’t wait to visit with friends.

50 days of waiting. Yes, Mr. Petty, I concur. The waiting IS the hardest part!!

If you’ve read very many of my posts, you know that I’m a bit of an HGTV and DIY Network junkie. When I first fixed up my house to ready it for sale—you know, exactly one day after the housing market crashed in 2007—I dutifully followed the sage advice of the HGTV Design to Sell team. I cleaned. I organized. I decluttered. I packed away personal photos. I removed superfluous furniture. I spruced up flowerbeds. The whole house was freshly painted. And I was confident the house would sell in no time.

Unfortunately, the market did not cooperate. After several months and a couple failed contracts, I pulled the for-sale-by-owner sign from the yard and decided to try again after Amelia graduated.

Fast forward to last year. The Money Pit was supposed to be finished, but wasn’t (and STILL isn’t), so in the throes of that project, I traded scraping, tiling and painting at the Money Pit for cleaning, packing, and landscaping at my house. We had some beautiful granite countertops installed, and I even hired a relative to closet in my washer/dryer, put up crown molding in the kitchen, and rebuild the garage doors. Finally we hired a realtor and reserved a spot on the MLS.

A couple nibbles, no bites, and when the holidays arrived, we pulled the home off the market again.

Still hopeful this April, we once again scoured and dusted and vacuumed. We packed up junk that had made its way onto counters and into corners. I planted, weeded and watered. Rush built a piece of privacy fence. And we put the realty sign in the yard for what we hoped would be the last time.

Even after a price drop in June … nothing … nada … crickets …

I could hear the cranky HGTV realtor Donna Freeman in my head: This is a lovely living room, Clive, but what in the world is THIS??
Clive would answer weakly: Well it appears to be some sort of slip-covered seating.
Donna: This is the first thing I see as I walk in the door, Clive. You want your furniture to say, ‘Welcome, come right in.’ But this ugly chair with its ill-fitting cover is screaming at potential buyers to run away!
Clive: And here we are in the second bedroom.
Donna: And who lives here, Clive? This should be a child’s room, but it looks like someone held a Granny convention in here.

Frustration, exhaustion, and several other ‘tions set in. But ever the optimist, I refused to be dissuaded!!! I closed my eyes tightly and thought, “W. W. L. D. (What Would Lisa Do)?” I am referring, of course, to Lisa Laporta, the pint-sized Design to Sell dynamo who turns every unsalable dump into a house-hunter’s dream.

Last weekend we dug in our heels. We hauled out more furniture. I packed up more glassware and chachkis and Rush cut down invasive tree branches. In the evenings after work, he scoured the sun porch and cleaned the exterior of the windows. I painted some wicker, dusted and vacuumed. In the process, I also evicted 642 tiny spiders and the accompanying 5 million miles of web. (I apologized to each as it succumbed to the vacuum, explaining that alas, I cannot sacrifice the sale of my home for his/her wellbeing. I HATE killing spiders.)

We touched up paint. We turned the granny guest room into a kid-friendly space. We exchanged feminine pillows and shower curtains for more gender-neutral options. And this weekend I will be weeding for the four-thousandth time. On Monday I am going to invite another realtor to come and inspect our work, and on his way out, I will throw myself at his feet, clutch his ankles in desperation, and cry: PLEEEEEEEEEEEEASE SELL MY HOUSE!!!!!!!

I think Clive would approve.

Help! I’m being held hostage! Beware, the culprit is a charmer, standing one and a half stories tall and 1760 square feet. It’s my old house, which has been on and off the market for the past year. Houses in our area are finally starting to move, and we’ve had plenty of traffic and interest, but no contracts yet.

FOR SALE in Columbus, GA

I say I’m being held hostage because it feels like every other sentence starts with: “As soon as the house sells, I can …” Fill in the blank: reclaim our furniture (currently being used for staging), get all my belongings under one roof, decorate The Money Pit, buy a new fridge, replace my daughter’s car, go on vacation (that’s my favorite!), and quit giving ourselves ulcers over our pitifully low checking accounts. Until my house sells, however, my hands are tied.

Any couple who has balanced two households simultaneously knows the financial abyss in which we currently find ourselves. It’s summer in SW Georgia, following the hottest spring on record, so we also have dueling AC bills to rival our mortgage payments. Did I mention that I have a daughter in college and to top it all off, her car just kicked the proverbial bucket??? UGH!

Not only does my house suck up vast amounts of cash, it also sucks up vast amounts of time and energy. Weeding flowerbeds, mulching, watering plants, dusting, cleaning. No one lives there, but somehow dust and dirt STILL manage to happen (‘splain that one, Lucy!), and there’s always some project or another that needs attention, so we’re constantly traipsing over to my place for cleaning, repairs and such.

If we put all the time, money and energy into The Money Pit that we’ve put into my old place during the past year, we’d be living in the freakin’ Taj Mahal by now!!

It’s beyond disheartening to put so much time, money and effort into something you are ready to say good-bye to—especially when the home you’re living in is screaming for attention. Other than basic Cinderella duties like cooking and cleaning, I haven’t done anything of consequence for The Money Pit since I finished sanding the dining room in March.

OK, all this whining and complaining is probably building up bad Chi or negative Karma or some other cosmic force prepared to smite me for bad behavior.

I know, let’s enact “The Secret.” Everyone please harness all your positive energy and visualize a SOLD sign in my front yard, a new happy  family living inside, a check for full price in my hand, and a giddy smile of glee on my face.

Just to cover my bases, if as many of you could also pray to your deity of choice, I’d be eternally grateful! I know I have Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Mormon, non-denominational Christian, Jewish, Jehovah’s Witness, and Catholic friends, and I’m hoping I’ve forgotten about a few Buddhist and Muslim friends who might put in a good word for me, too.

Well, if lightening doesn’t strike me down in my tracks for the sacrilegious misuse of [insert angry deity(s) here] then hopefully my next post will be full of real-estate-closing joy!!!