Matt + Janae

As soon as Janae and I knew we were going to Singapore, we immediately started preparing the home for sale. Mierelle Steed, who had just sold their home for their move to Denver, gave me a quick education on how to sell on your own as she had also done it for their move to Virginia. She came over and staged the home as hers was just profesionally done, she picked up a lot of the principles. In total, she had four pages of changes she recommended. Our new neighbor Mike, who works as a contractor, also came through and critiqued our home.

We painted the home to neutral colors, de-cluttered by selling or moving most of our belongings to Cheng-yu's basement, added a chandeleir to the dining area, changed light fixtures in two other places, changed all light bulbs to max wattage to show more light, re-chaulked everything, re-finished kitchen and bathroom cabinets, moved furniture all over the house, and much more. The principle is to make the home look like a model home with a lot of light and space creating a warm inviting environment where people can picture themselves and their stuff in the home. I do have to say, the home does look like a model home now. At least we get to enjoy it until we leave.

These touch up changes were in addition to the major renovation Janae's dad and I did at the end of last year. I took out a wall in the kitchen to open up the space which involved moving a light switch, a vent, and a telephone jack. We completely gutted the half bath, replaced the sink and vanity with a vessel sink, and replaced the toilet. Changing that one toilet required me to move or install 3 toilets. Janae thought it would be a good idea to replace the perfectly good functioning toilet in the half bath with a new white one, move the one currently in the half bath upstairs to the master bath, and throw away the toilet in the main bath.

Before Pictures (I took pics after I already made some holes in the wall. Almost forgot to take the pictures all together!)

After Pics

After spending the time and money for renovations we're going to have to leave it all and sell in a down housing environment. I tried selling on my own and through the process learned that at least in this environment it's not easy. I did all we knew how to do - making the home look immaculate, the pretty pictures and flyer, listing on the realtor database and all the internet sites, catered and hosted a brokers open house. There were some people interested before I left, but no hard contracts. Janae and I left it to a realtor to finish the job.

One thing I learned about realtors through the interview process is this: I will forever more use a different realtor to buy a house, to sell a house, and to manage a rental. Each requires a different skill and there are realtors out there that specialize in one particular market only. Our selling agent only sells houses. She has a very strong personality, is assertive, and has never had a house listed for more than 30 days on the market. It is her passion and track record that made us decide to go with her.