TheBanyanTree: SOLD!

[Glo~ee]

Hallelujah, Margaret!!!

What a wonderful time of year to begin anew.  As Spring bursts
forward, so shall the two of you.  A time of rebirth in more ways than
one.  Sounds rather exciting to me as I sit here with the usual cabin
fever blues I entertain this time of year.   A new chapter begins with
new neighbors, a new route to work and back again, new routines about
the house and elsewhere.  How refreshing!

I'm so happy for you!

Gloria... tempted to go help Margaret with the hunt for a new house! 
Just for the fun of it, of course...not that I'd actually be any help
to her.  :-)



On 3/5/06, Margaret R. Kramer <margaretkramer at comcast.net> wrote:
> Our agent called me yesterday morning and our house is SOLD!  Our house was
> on the market since June with our first agent, who did nothing except
> complain about our dogs.  Then we had a month break when we changed agents.
> We used that month to replace the carpet and unfortunately, we put our dogs
> down.  I still don't feel good about that decision, but the dogs were older
> and they were having trouble moving, but I feel that we did it about a year
> too soon.
>
> Our new agent is an energetic, enthusiastic person who has been in the
> business for over 20 years.  He has been very easy to work with and I trust
> him completely.  When we first re-listed this house at the end of September,
> we didn't have any lookers.  We had two open houses that no one came to.  We
> had sporadic showings.  It was quite discouraging, but I think it was the
> market, not the agent.  We went to a few open houses last fall and all the
> agents were saying the same thing, the market had just died.
>
> Things picked up in December for us.  Believe or not, we had more showings
> in December than we did in October or November.  We almost had an offer, but
> they decided our house needed too much work, and they bought another house.
> We were disappointed, but we had used that time of anticipation to drive
> around and look at some houses.  Our agent said to do our research and we
> did learn more about the neighborhoods we would like to live in.
>
> Our agent changed real estate companies in January, which was OK, but our
> showings went down and we wondered if that was because he changed companies
> or because it was just a slow time.  January new listings in the Twin Cities
> metro area were at an all time high and I was gnashing my teeth about all
> the additional competition.
>
> All of sudden, the third and fourth weeks of February, we were having
> showings all the time.  Poor Axel spent a lot of time in the back seat of
> our car.  We went to Pet Smart a lot.  Beagles don't have a lot of extra fur
> to keep them warm and I didn't want him to freeze in the car.  Our weekends
> were disrupted with showings.  And last weekend was crazy, but we got two
> offers out of that craziness, and the offer we accepted was $1,000 over our
> list price!  I thought that was pretty good in such a buyer's market.
>
> Through this entire process of selling our home, I've kept a database of
> houses I would like to look at.  It's so easy with the internet.  I have 41
> houses that are "possibles."  Ray and I picked out five houses to look at
> and I sent the MLS numbers to our agent.  We'll start looking tomorrow
> night.  One of the houses we like has an open house today, so we'll do our
> "research" and go check it out.  And we'll use the time to drive by our
> other houses, too, just so we can look at the neighborhoods and the houses
> in broad daylight.
>
> As Ray said yesterday, now we will really have to look at these houses,
> rather than just look at them in casual way.  We'll need to look at the
> roofs, the plumbing and heating, the appliances, and the set up.  It's
> serious business now.  Ray will probably take the digital camera and I'll
> take notes, so we don't get the houses mixed up in our heads.
>
> The other great thing about being SOLD is that we can stop living in a
> "staged home."  It's OK to have some clutter around again.  I don't have to
> put everything away immediately.  What a relief!  Of course, the house is
> going to be a mess as we begin packing, but we're enjoying it this weekend
> before we begin dismantling everything.  We'll get a dumpster to throw out
> the junk.  Ray will begin to bring boxes home from work.
>
> I got our taxes done yesterday, so we can stash the cash for our move.  We'
> re going to have Asher and Susan and the boys over for dinner tonight so
> they can enjoy the house before we take it apart.
>
> SOLD – I sure like that word.  It's been one I've bee waiting to hear for a
> long time.
>
> Margaret R. Kramer
> margaretkramer at comcast.net
>
> http://www.bpwmn.org
> Business and Professional Women of Minnesota
>
> Be careful of your thoughts, they may become words at any moment.
> ~Iara Gassen
>
>