We had a blast making our first house a home and learning along the way. Below you can see photos and links related to each finished space in house 1.0.

Our first home, built in 2011.

Front entry – the quote here was one of my favorite things in this house.

 Kitchen

Living Room

Main Level Deck

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Bedroom 2 / Page’s Office

Bedroom 3 / Liz’s Office

Bedroom 4 / Guest Room

Laundry Room

Basement Wet Bar – Read about how we built this here

Basement Living Area

Basement Bath
 

Lower Patio

We’ve decided to build!

You can ask our realtor — we’ve come a LONG way from where we began this second home search. We started out headed for Kansas and ended up in California. Or for Spain and went to Switzerland. Whatever the phrase is.

We first walked through an existing home back in February “just to see” if we even thought it was the right time to move. We were on the fence, and many more things seem to factor into the decision this time around, but when we saw that first house, we actually loved it more than we expected to and it whet our appetites to relocate. But then it was pulled off the market… we took it as a sign to keep looking around.

We started out asking specifically to NOT see new construction, but quickly saw just how little was for sale, even after we seriously widened our price range at both ends and expanded into other areas around Des Moines (we even took a drive out to Adel, which for us, was a stretch). We saw the same handful of listings in our favorite areas, that met our criteria, again and again, but none of them felt even remotely right. Our conversations evolved, perspectives changed, and you guessed it, we started looking at builders.

Don’t get me wrong, we saw some beautiful homes and met with talented builders. But I felt “meh” about all of it. We were in love with the idea of a 1.5 story plan, but no one was currently building one or had ever done one before to reference, so we rather quickly pushed it out of our minds and focused on something in general more open and sprawling with higher ceilings – which led us to ranch plans. Give or take a few details we loved, we saw the same three floor plans, over and over and OVER again, from a variety of builders. (I think we met with at least a half dozen in person and toured many more). You can only do so much with a ranch floor plan, and we saw it all…and loved…none of it. We actually came close to signing on the dotted line with a builder who was the best of what we saw, but thankfully in a bit of Divine Intervention, the plan fell through.

On the same night we were supposed to do a final meet with this builder to start talking plans and put together a purchase agreement, they cancelled the meeting to be out of town. Micole, our realtor, saw an opportunity to show us something she hadn’t given up looking for, for us, and had JUST found. I honestly was OVER meeting with builders at this point and was ready to pass (Page had to convince me to go!)…but then she mentioned the home she wanted us to tour was what now seemed to be an urban myth…a 1.5 story!

We oohed. We ahhed. We pretty much drooled. THIS was the builder, the right vibe, and more or less, the plan we had been looking for, and it could all happen in a price range we were comfortable with. (I don’t even have pics to share, I was too busy loving it!) We’ll change and move around several things, but more or less, the IDEA is totally spot-on. Open/high ceilings in the main area, master on the main level, bedrooms/office space for PageSmith Design upstairs, and a basement level in which we can eventually add an extra bedroom/bath, great room, workout space, and (halleluiah!) unfinished storage space. And it turns out we weren’t crazy…they shared with us that night that only ELEVEN 1.5 story homes were built in all of Des Moines in 2013. No wonder we weren’t finding any!

I know this post is heavy on words and light on pictures of anything but us giving a bunch of thumbs up on an empty lot, but more are coming, I promise!

And yes, we’re 99.9% sure this is the spot where the house will eventually stand. In fact that’s me standing more or less in a front “flex room” that will be able to go back and forth from a living area/office to small studio space for ClickSmith!

At this moment, we’re balancing the search for some temporary (and immediate!) housing, with keeping things rolling on casa 2.0. Back soon with updates on all of it.

My husband and I recently sold our first home ourselves, with great success. (Part of me wants to call this post, “How we sold our house in THREE WEEKS!” but I know the markets are different for everyone.) What I want to share today are tips and tricks we learned along the way, that we think contributed to our FSBO success.

Our main motivation was to save money from the sale of our house, that we could roll into our next one, a rationale we shared openly from the beginning with our buying agent for our next home with the original intention of giving the process 30 days or so on our own before re-evaluating. I know it’s not for everyone, but we would do it this way again in a minute!

1. Determine your price. In a market with little inventory in our price range/location, this was tricky for us. We did a lot of research on comparable sales in the surrounding areas in the past twelve months, and compared what our three-year-old house had to offer with new construction by similar builders and plans nearby. There were no exact comparisons, and some guesswork and averaging involved in the beginning. Additionally, we were working with outdated assessments of our home (new construction values are constantly evolving in the beginning), PLUS our finished basement numbers weren’t yet reflected anywhere. Our final hurdle was that our original purchase price doesn’t accurately reflect what we bought at the time — upgrades that our builder “threw in” weren’t included in the price, as well as the upgrade from daylight to walkout basement, for which we didn’t pay a cent (more on that unexpected free upgrade here).

Do as much research as you can to set the right price the first time, so you aren’t drastically dropping it thirty days later. It’s easy to question yourself the first time a buyer’s agent asks how you arrived at your price. But we took it as a sign that with so much traffic through our home, people had decided for themselves that the price was not an issue.

2. Stage your home. You know the drill here – declutter, clean like crazy, and stash as much personal stuff as you can. Set out only selective items that help buyers visualize themselves living there (fan out a couple magazines on the ottoman, place a stack of clean white towels on the dryer). You can read here about a few tricks we employed to keep things neat between showings. Clean and simple is best — I didn’t keep the table set, for example, I just placed a bowl of lemons in the center and moved on. Speaking of lemons, scent is your friend! You know that saying that you can’t smell your own home? I always worried that scents from the previous night’s cooking or something would linger and I wouldn’t be able to smell it. So, I used a clean lemon room spray in the main floor, and lavender upstairs in the bedrooms/laundry before every showing. Last minute things out the door included making sure all the toilet seats were down, emptying trash cans, turning on all the lights, and putting on quiet background music throughout the house on the speakers. Make your home as inviting and friendly as possible!

3. Prepare the house for showings. This is different than staging. When listed with an agent, your agent’s job is to get in and out of the house and to make sure there’s information available to prospective buyers. When you’re selling FSBO, this is up to you. We spent about forty bucks on Amazon for a yard sign and a document holder to attach to it, and a combination box for our front door. We staked the sign and stocked it with copies of our flyer (keep count of how many you put out there — you can gauge interest by how quickly you run out!). The combination box allowed us to not be on call during showings. We changed the code on the lockbox regularly, and only hung it on the outside of the door during showings, keeping it inside the rest of the time. Page would simply text the combination to the buyers agent the day of the showing, we’d turn off our alarm system remotely, and we didn’t have to worry about being around. The only exception was one showing to people who didn’t have an agent of their own, for which we stuck around but out of the way so as not to crowd them.

4. Take pictures of your home. If you don’t feel comfortable taking photographs or don’t have access to a camera (not your phone), this would be a step worth investing in, whether you rent equipment for a day or hire a photographer. Even though it drove me a little nuts as a buyer to see “larger than life” photos, I was coached to shoot real estate photos as wide angle as possible in every room – even if things appeared super distorted at times.

Shoot on a bright, sunny, day and of course only after your home is picked up and staged to show. I tend to squat a little when taking room pictures (see photo above) — just dropping the point of view down a few inches can make the photos feel more like you’re there IN the room looking at it, (and ceilings appear higher!). It sounds a little weird, but the difference is noticeable!

5. Find your inner Don Draper. No one but you is working for your house when it’s FSBO. It’s tough to write marketing for your own home without it dripping with personal attachment. We worked hard to keep it to just the facts and not use “we” or “our”, while still injecting little tidbits about upgrades we’d done (so buyers knew the house was well cared for) and the neighbors being awesome (great location). Our fantastic buyers agent for our next house, Micole, helped us as well. Her tip: Even when character limits online are brief, spend them on a first sentence or two that really sets the stage and invites buyers to read on.

We created a one page flyer (see above) available inside and outside the house, and some fast facts about our little Des Moines suburb (we quickly learned many showings were for out-of-towners not familiar with the area) displayed in a frame during showings. We picked up a clear document stand to keep copies of the flyers, the sellers disclosure agreement, a local city publication, and visiting agents’ cards all together.

6. Get your home on the MLS and Zillow. This work was KEY to our traffic (ten showings in the first two weeks). Page ran point on this, and after weighing a few options, he created our Zillow listing (costs nothing) and went through owners.com to create our MLS listing. You submit all the nitty gritty specs of your home, write a brief description, and you upload photos (and can pay for more than the standard amount of photos to display). The fees involved with this part were around $400, but verify based on the state in which you’re selling. We learned that in Iowa, in addition to these up front fees, a .5% of the purchase price went to an agent because Iowa has a minimum service requirement, meaning an agent has to be assigned for minimal assistance, even when you’re technically selling the home, yourself. This cost added up a bit, but was well worth it to show in every real estate and online search tool. Also, when it came time to navigate what to do with multiple offers, the assigned agent was very helpful and his attorney handled all of the purchase agreement paperwork for us.

Anyone else sell their home themselves? I’d love to add to this list of tips via your comments!

Here’s the quick catch-up on what’s been going on here lately:

Last week, three different prospective buyers got in the mix and we accepted an offer. Pending our inspection next week, Hank the House will be officially sold to an awesome second family!

So now, things really speed up. Our planned close date is mid May, which means we’ll likely do the big move out the weekend before. Which means we need a lease starting May 1. Which means YIKES! 🙂 I’ve already packed some boxes, sold some stuff on Facebook, and talked myself through a couple freak-outs. (Did I mention I leave for a five day girls trip – first vacation in a year! – in the middle of this?) Page is on the hunt for a short term lease and possibly separate storage space – cross your fingers.

We’ll make it work, and we knew we were signing up for this when we decided to build our next home. (Post coming soon on that decision.) I can’t wait to share details and plans and sneak peeks with you guys. All of this is going to be SO worth it. 🙂

For those who’ve asked, YES we sold our home ourselves. I’m planning a post on all the details, including how we staged and promoted our home, and how to get on the MLS, all of which we’re convinced made all the difference in getting lots of traffic (a dozen showings in the first two weeks) and quick offers (sold in three weeks). It’s not for everyone, but we would do it again. We feel like we learned a LOT in this process and want to share!

I don’t know who let this lady into our house, or where she came from, but she’s into cleaning lately.

I know. Whaaa??

I chalk it up to a mixture of Spring fever and wanting to get the house feeling fresh for the changing seasons. Plus, having it on the market makes me look at it with new eyes and clean with just a little more vigor. At a moment’s notice, the house has to be sparkling from floor to ceiling for a showing!

I got on a Pinterest kick one night and started researching homemade cleaners using natural products that were cheap to whip up. (Since we seem to be cleaning daily lately, I was not opposed to something with a lower price tag.) I also like the idea of getting away from the chemical stuff, and using something greener.

To start, I stocked up on some microfiber rags, (way cheap at TJ Maxx if you’re looking for some) – rather than going through rolls of paper towels, I like that these have a little more durability to scrub with and I can use them over and over.

Then I made a batch of two kinds of cleaners, using the following “ingredients”:

Lemon essential oil and Dr. Brommer’s lavender castile soap (I found these at Whole Foods)…

…and a jug of distilled water and one of white vinegar.

Then I made my two cleaners. First, an all-purpose cleaner:

Fill a spray bottle with distilled water and add a teaspoon of castile soap. Add a few drops of essential oil if you like for added scent oomph! Shake before using. This is great for wiping down cabinets and baseboards, and I used it to clean the inside of our fridge and microwave. It smells SO good!

Then, I made a water and vinegar mix for cleaning our stainless sink and appliances as well as glass surfaces:

Half distilled water and half vinegar. And LOTS of essential oil to combat the whiffs of vinegar.

I’m loving the way my house smells (and glistens) lately 🙂 Happy spring (cleaning)!

The sign is in the yard. The flyers are printed. The lockbox is on the door. We won’t hit the MLS until later this week, but between Zillow and Facebook, we’ve already had a couple of calls…in other words, our house is officially on the market!

Even without kids or pets around, putting our house on the market this week has created an increased level of maintenance, so that we can be gone at a moment’s notice, leaving a spotless home behind for potential buyers to view.

So yes, we make the bed now. And we’re doing our best to keep the house picked up, all dishes go straight out of sight into the dishwasher, and we empty wastebaskets on a much more regular basis. I’ve also made an effort to tidy up the insides of things that might be looked at, like kitchen cabinets, the pantry, the fridge, and the linen closet.

But I’ve also put a couple other little things into play that have made leaving the house presentable, at a moment’s notice, a little bit easier. The following are my “Top 5 Tips”!

1. A basket for shower stuff

Scrubbing down the shower goes so much faster when all of the residue-producing products are corralled in a shower basket. Then, prior to a showing, it’s one quick motion to stash the basket under the sink cabinet, out of sight. The shower is less cluttered and free of personal items, making it easier for potential buyers to view it as being their own.

2. Paper plates

I know. The go green gods will strike me down. But meals at home mean dirty dishes, and when the dishwasher is already loaded down and not ready to emptied, I sometimes switch to paper plates for a quick sandwich, so as to not be left with a sink of dirty dishes at the exact moment a realtor calls.

3. Stashing Norwex cloths

No, I’m not a Norwex rep and this isn’t a plug — I just love Norwex stuff, period. In particular, the “polishing cloths” meant for glass and stainless steel. Normally, I keep all cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink, but when we might only have fifteen minutes to get out of the house, I don’t want to spend a couple of them running up and down the stairs for what I need. I’ve started stashing cloths around the house — this one in our master bath to quickly wipe spots off the mirror over the sink, and give the counters a fast swipe. I love that I don’t need Windex or anything else around for this cloth to work – just water!