Haddon "punch list"

The "punch list," I guess, is realtor-speak for the last few things that need to be taken care of before the house is ready to be shown.

Jim thinks the interior of the Haddon house is looking great. He complimented the floors and the overall condition of the place, including the way we're living in it - sparsely. Inside, he says, we need just a couple of things:

• Organize the attic and basement as planned. Jim said the basement looks good - it looks like a dry, clean basement, and when I get the stuff in it organized, people will be better able to see how enormous it is. Same for the attic.
• New caulk in the tub. We knew that. I did this myself this morning; I've done it before, it only takes about an hour (plus drying time). It's a big improvement, I should do it more often.
• Cheap venetian blinds on all the windows. This would cost a little money; the blinds are only about $20 apiece, but we need ten of them, plus the labor to install them. It's not a hard job but I would be too slow at it - I'd hope for Sergio. Jim feels strongly that this is needed.

The outside, Jim felt, is not up to the same standard. The front is passable but the back is well below its potential, and there is wide agreement that the exterior matters a lot. Sergio and his crew did an enormous amount of work clearing out the overgrown everything, and that needed doing - they'll also repair the fence this week. But now the yard is only cleaned up, not actually attractive. Jim has a landscaping guy he loves who he calls in for overnight transformations - he just tells him "Make this look beautiful for sale," and in a single day, he and his whole family swarm over the place and turn it into something really lovely. This costs around $1000, depending on how much they do. Jim has asked the guy to come by and give him an estimate.

Jim said we also need to clean the AC unit (just to make it look nicer). I'll do that myself before lunch.

While we're on the subject of the exterior, Sergio's estimate for the fence freaked us out at first - about $2500, including labor, materials, and disposal of the old fence. But we interviewed some neighbors who had new fences put in recently, and that price was in line with what they paid. And we certainly have to do it. Jim agrees that it is probably not worth pursuing the neighbors for the cost of the fence repair; he thinks they may not even be liable for it (he helped a client with something similar a couple years ago). However, he said we should legally notify the landlord of the property behind us that we are replacing the fence. He'll get their contact information and forward it to us.

The items we need to decide on are the blinds and the landscaping. What do people think?