Holy cow — we sold our house.
(I’ll pause while Sherry has a moment — that sentence is a bit of a trigger.)
Now that the inspection and appraisal are complete and the closing date is on the calendar, we finally feel safe sharing the news publicly. We waited until this stage last time as well. Nothing’s final until everyone signs in early June, but so far everything is on track.
First, some background: Sherry wanted to sell our house FSBO (For Sale By Owner) again. Her point was that we could save nearly $10,000 or more by not paying a 6% seller’s agent commission. Even if the buyer brings an agent, we’d only pay 3% instead of 6%, which made the numbers compelling. I was more hesitant because I remembered the stress of our previous sale and wanted to see how selling with an agent might compare. We compromised: we would try FSBO for a week. If that didn’t work, we’d list it on the MLS ourselves for a few hundred dollars (that’s what helped us find a buyer last time). If offers still hadn’t arrived after a few weeks, we’d consider hiring a Realtor.
Here’s the timeline:
Friday, April 26: Anne, the Realtor who helped us buy our new home, reached out to ask if our house was on the market yet. She had buyers looking for a ranch-style home and thought ours would be a great fit. We told her we would put the house on the market in four days and she said she’d call if her buyers wanted to see it. (This is a reenactment and yes, it makes Sherry laugh/cry a little.)
Saturday & Sunday, April 27–28: We spent the weekend finishing last-minute projects in case we had immediate interest. We’ll share a separate post about how we staged the house for showings.
Things ramp up from here.
Monday, April 29
- 2:00 pm: Anne calls — her buyers are excited and want to tour the house the next day at 2:00 pm. Yikes!
- 2:30 pm: Reality check: we haven’t made a flyer or settled on a listing price. Time to act.
- 3:00 pm: We start cleaning frantically. When did Clara accumulate so many toys? Storage ottomans are lifesavers.
- 9:30 pm: After researching comparable homes and debating price, we choose a listing price and put together a flyer.
- 12:30 am: Our computer freezes while printing the flyer and the file is lost. Too tired to recreate it that night.
Tuesday, April 30
- 7:00 am: Up early to recreate the flyer and finalize our blog post announcing the house.
- 9:00 am: Flyer printed. The house still needs work, so more cleaning happens.
- 10:00 am: The post goes live and comments roll in, but the tub caulk looks grimy — cue the caulk gun.
- 1:30 pm: The house finally looks presentable, though we’re sweaty from the effort. Fortunately Anne will be showing the house for us.
- 1:45 pm: Anne arrives early to see the updates we’ve made.
- 1:55 pm: The buyers arrive early, so we leave to give them space.
- 2:00 pm: With Burger and Clara in tow, we kill time at a nearby dog-friendly mall. Clara and Burger amuse themselves in store mirrors and we sneak a peaceful minute away.
- 3:00 pm: An hour passes and we still haven’t heard from Anne. We try calling but reach voicemail.
- 3:15 pm: Clara is overdue for her nap and getting restless, so we decide to head home.
- 3:30 pm: As we turn onto our street we see Anne and the buyers leaving their cars. An hour and a half for a first showing feels promising.
- 3:31 pm: Anne calls to say they really liked the house and will sleep on it and run the numbers.
- 4:00 pm: We’re excited and relieved and spend the evening responding to messages and emailing flyers to local inquiries. Another showing is scheduled for 11:00 am the next day.
- Midnight: The house is presentable again and we crash.
Wednesday, May 1
- 5:00 am: Sherry wakes early, energized by potential buyers and new-house plans, and starts drafting a Q&A post.
- 5:30 am: I head to the gym and come back to the morning routine.
- 7:30 am: Clara wakes and we get her ready to spend the morning with Grammy.
- 10:00 am: Post is live, Clara is with Grammy, and the house is cleaned and ready for the second showing.
- 11:00 am: Potential buyers arrive with their agent. We step out for a walk while they look around.
- 11:30 am: Someone who received our flyer calls and asks to see the house that afternoon.
- Noon: The second showing ends. Their agent liked the house and had some lender-related questions. I let them know we had an offer but no agreement yet.
- 2:30 pm: Clara returns from Grammy’s and a third interested party, without an agent, arrives. I give them a tour while Sherry takes a walk with Burger.
- 3:00 pm: The third showing wraps; they seem interested but less enthusiastic than the other two groups.
- 3:30 pm: Anne calls with an offer from the first showing. It’s strong but $5,000 below our asking price. We tell her we’ll consider it.
- 4:00 pm: We discuss options and I inform the agent from the second showing that there’s an offer on the table. He asks us to wait and promises their offer within a few hours.
- 7:00 pm: A second offer arrives that’s not as strong as the first, but helpful in clarifying our decision.
- 7:15 pm: Anne calls back: the first buyers agreed to meet us in the middle on price.
- 8:30 pm: We sign the paperwork. The house is officially under contract — less than 36 hours after our first showing. We’re exhausted and relieved.
We now have a few inspection items to complete, a final termite inspection to schedule, and the inevitable packing and moving tasks ahead. It will be a busy month.
We’re extremely grateful for how smoothly this FSBO process went. Like last time, we’re paying 3% to the buyer’s agent but saved nearly $10,000 by acting as our own seller’s agent and marketing the house ourselves. The market seems to be picking up: homes in our area that are priced well and staged nicely are getting contracts within days to a week of listing. That’s encouraging news for other sellers.
Interestingly, although we hoped a reader might buy the house, our buyer wasn’t from the blog audience. Just like our first sale, this opportunity came through our Realtor who happened to have buyers searching for a one-level, updated ranch. So you don’t need a blog to sell your house — thoughtful updates and good timing helped a lot.
This experience stood in sharp contrast to our first sale in 2010, which took 14 showings over more than three weeks and involved multiple listing strategies. That was stressful too, but thankfully it didn’t drag on for months. Right now we’re planning to move into our new home in about three weeks. Time to start packing!