And so our journey began...

Our agent did a walk through of our house and gave us an on-the-spot estimate of what she would price it at and it was a little lower than what Sergio expected. I don't know if I was expecting anything though it did seem low when compared with recent sales in the area. Granted, our bedroom was a giant mess and our master bath could use a new coat of paint. I think Sergio still had a bunch of astrophotography equipment AND work video equipment stacked up in the bedroom. And both our bathroom and closet doors had been removed - they were the super cheap accordion type that basically fell off from use and we always meant to replace. Anyway, Sergio and and discussed and we weren't really ready to sell so told our agent we would sit on the sidelines a bit longer.

Meanwhile I kept my eye on the market for interesting properties in Mount Washington. There were definitely a few that were really enticing. There was one I kept seeing, and the price kept dropping. I didn't understand why. It was a nice house, great area...though it wasn't really a style I loved. I was almost afraid to show Sergio because I knew he would love it. But then I did and he did. It had been a few months since we talked to our agent. She called or texted and told us about an economics talk she attended at USC. These experts were talking about the likelihood of an housing price slump happening in the first or second quarter of 2016. If were were still considering selling, now would be the time. Or wait until the market picked back up later. We had lunch which her. We discussed. She thought our house could now list for higher than what she though earlier. We thought about it. We showed her the house Sergio loved. She took Sergio to see inside it on a Wednesday. He LOVED it. Luca and I saw it the following Saturday. I also loved it. Or, more, I loved how it was move-in ready, in the location I wanted, and felt amazing. Seriously, standing on the balcony, feeling the breeze, watching the butterflies float by...wow. I was sold.

This is that house.



Of course, we need to sell our house first. So the next day, on Valentine's day, we signed a contract with her to sell our house! Eeeep! The plan was that she would have her team come in to do some quick touch-ups and patch-ups, maybe sand and re-stain our deck, paint in some places, etc. It would take a couple days. We would list the following week.

But then, she made a few calls and discovered that despite sitting on the market for months, the house we wanted suddenly had a lot of interest. There was already an offer coming in. She told the agent about our contingency of needing to sell before we could buy, but that our house would sell quickly. He said we needed to at least be listed for his client to even look at our offer. So our schedule sped up like crazy. Work would be done on Monday (President's Day), we would clean, clear, and stage the house for a Tuesday photoshoot, the house would list on MLS on Wednesday in time to be included in the Thursday caravan/broker's open. We would have our first open house on Sunday. Whew!

We scrambled and hustled HARD to clean and de-clutter. We rented a storage unit - something I thought we would never do! Honestly, our house looked AMAZING. I was so proud of what we had done in the seven years we lived here. It really shined up really nicely. I'm not sure how long the listing site will be up, but here it is: http://5039almaden.com/



Gosh. I'm getting sad looking at these photos. I'm going to miss our house. So much.