Selling my house - myself!

It's been a very long time since I last blogged but I've decided that I want to keep a record of my latest crazy idea...

Mark and I have decided to sell our house and upgrade to one substantially larger.  Larger because we've decided to invite my sister and her son to live with us.  There's a lot to be said for living in large family groups.  How much of it is good I suppose you'll find out if you follow this blog over the next few months.

We live in an upmarket suburb with lots of very big houses.  By very big I mean that 4-5 bedrooms is usual and swimming pools and tennis courts are not unusual.  Some even boast "media rooms" and indoor swimming pools - I kid you not!

Our house is an entry level into this market.  It is generously described as 3 bedrooms, though the 3rd bedroom is really a glorified sun room.  It's a cottage in a street with mansions... We also have some topographical challenges in the form of a house built at the top of a very steep block - it has some advantages... it's bright and has a lovely flat -ish backyard.  But you've got to climb 42 steps from the street to enjoy the advantages.  And therein lies the entry level of our home in this market.

Given we're at the bottom of an upmarket suburb my father who's usually very astute suggested that we sell our house privately without engaging a real estate agent.  When he suggested we, he probably meant me.  I'm the extrovert in this household.   But with a market value of over $900K and 2% agent commission, saving $20K sounds like something that's probably worth giving a go...

So here we are.

We're not completely in the deep end.  I have an uncle who very generously has donated some advice and we've spent the past month getting the house ready.  Which involved a whole lot of time and money.  In order to bring the house into a state that someone will walk in and offer us the best part of $1 million bucks we've been really busy.

We've:
Painted - or rather paid a handsome some to some lovely blokes to do it for us
Gardened - or rather paid a hardworking gardener to work some wonders!  It does look great!
De-cluttered - Over 500 books have gone, bookcases, buffets, dinner sets, all of our family pictures.... the place looks huge - and it is - all of our stuff is GONE!
Cleaned - carpets,windows, fireplace (the first time ever!)
Replaced curtains
just to name a few of the jobs that we've been keeping ourselves busy with...

Next week we've got a photographer booked to come and take some pics for us and to update the floor plan.

It's expensive to advertise property you know... so I did a bit of research googling "selling your house privately" and found a couple of companies set up to help people like us...  to put an ad on one of the leading real estate sites online privately costs $500 for 28 days!  Another one doesn't accept private ads at all... A board for the front yard was going to cost upwards of $120....  But these companies for about $600 give you access to all of that....

So I've bought a new pre paid SIM card so I don't have to give my phone number out to people and we're good to go.

My sister can sell ice to Eskimos and given she'll be benefiting from our purchase of new digs has kindly offered to step in where my introvert husband can't and is going to help me do the "open house" on a Saturday.  My Dad has offered to help mid week and I may yet take him up on his offer.... Managing a full time job and 2 kids under 5 while we go through this process might just make me crazy!

Here's hoping that this will be a quick (I hope) and not too painful process.

Wish me luck!