Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Kuwait City, Kuwait on March 31st.

Friday, September 3, 2021

So, there's another thing out of the way

We were back up at the house yesterday. We are almost done though... probably one more day to finish everything up, so we won't go up again until Sunday. I got both the back and the front entrance doors painted while Ruth's brother Colin had rented a heavy duty carpet cleaner at Home Depot and did the rug in the family room. It was in pretty nasty shape, and we considered actually changing it out but the end result using the cleaner was better than expected so I think we'll just leave it.

When selling a house it's always a big question mark as to how much painting and decorating to do, isn't it? Because many people will move to a new home and redecorate anyhow the way they want it.

So you try and do enough to clean things up, but not so much that what you're doing is just going to get redone again anyhow. 

It is finally listed on the MLS service at realtor.ca. They really make you jump through hoops to get it listed there. The real estate industry doesn't like it when people try to sell property without using their services.

And so far, no bites from that although it was only listed yesterday afternoon. I had two more phone calls from the road sign out front, but still nobody interested enough to want to stop by for a showing.

But, I have learned before that it only takes one interested buyer.

Speaking of which, I had bought a bunch of Birks Crystal glassware at the auction two weeks ago. When I saw that it was going so cheap, I bid it up to $65 and ended up with the goods. Ruth's dad would have turned over in his grave if it had been sold at such a low price. I figure he must have paid close to $1,000 for it years ago.

So I figured I would see what I could do privately.

Well it turns out this stuff doesn't appreciate over time. In fact, nobody wants it anymore! So I was almost thinking I was going to take a loss on the deal, but I put it on the local buy-sell classifieds and was surprised when a guy picked it up this morning for my asking price of $100 FIRM. He said his grandmother had a set, and he just wanted to add to it.

Nice. So there's another thing out of the way.

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And in Canada...

Record low deal on Amazon's popular Echo Dot.

8 comments:

  1. We ripped out our carpet in the living room, down the hall and in our bedroom and installed laminate. Repainted all the walls over a 3 year period. Left the carpet in the two other bedrooms for kids. Redid the whole basement in 2016. We then sold. I always wondered what the new owners changed. Im sure they left the floors though.

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    1. Yes, but you did these things to your house while you were still living in it, it would have been great if these things could have been done over the last few years that my dad was living in the house but he always thought that he was going to do it himself so he wouldn't pay to have someone do them. At this point it is just better to do the basics and make the house looks clean but leave it for the owners to paint the house the colours that they want to paint it.

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  2. As long as it's clean and empty the better. Prospective buyers will see it as a blank slate. I think houses that are being lived in are a hard sell.

    As for the secretaey bird, I'm sure she took note of the picture :)

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    1. We have always heard that a house sells better with furniture in it so that people can gauge the size of rooms, that is why many realtors like to stage houses for sale. The house will definitely be good and clean!

      Lol, I am sure she did! ;-)

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  3. I agree with your attitude. After two years on the market we sold our house with furnitures still in for the showing and only the necessary painting and repair done when we found a buyer. He took all the carpets out but let the kitchen as it was. I expected that they might build a new house but they were happy with the 30 year old one which was quite healthy. You never know.....

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    1. Thanks for your input Angi, it helps us feel good about our decision of not doing too much extra work that could be unnecessary. People are going to see the house empty but at least they can see the pictures with furniture in it, in the ads for the house. We think that whoever buys the house will pull up the carpeting even if we put a new one down, it seems that few people these days want carpeting.

      I am glad that the people who bought your house didn't take it down and build a new one, we thought your house was lovely just the way it was! :-)

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  4. My sister replaced her nasty 60s era kitchen on the advice of her real estate agent. The buyer turned around and completely gutted the kitchen/dining area. Man was she miffed!

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    1. Yep, and this is exactly why we haven't bothered to do that with my Dad's kitchen. It is clean and functional the way it is, they could easily live with it the way it is so we are leaving it as is. There is definitely a fine line to deciding what will increase the value of the home and what wouldn't. We have certainly done the big things that needed to be fixed/repaired, the rest will be up to the buyer.

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