Showing the Haddon house

Of course one of the things that has me biting my nails up to the elbows is how we will show the Haddon house when we're living in it. I met with Jim on Sunday, and he was pretty reassuring on this point. First of all, there is less to do on a daily basis than I had been expecting. We don't have to leave the place every morning looking as though no one lives here. Of course it has to be clean (and the items on the "punch list" need to be addressed in advance), but it's fine to do things like tuck the toys neatly into a corner rather than eliminate them from the living space. That's the condition he saw the house in on Sunday, and he says the impression you get walking in is very much that we are almost moved out. "It looks like you could be gone in 24 hours," Jim said. While that's not quite true, the point seems to be that the house looks available, rather than looking full of the current occupants. What a buyer will see is a place that could be theirs in short order.

To my great relief Jim is sure it's fine if Phil is here while the place is being shown. I am a little concerned about people letting him out, but he's not a door dasher, and there are screen doors that swing closed behind you when you come in. Jim advised us to leave a note on the door asking people not to let the cat out. It seems like that will be okay.

As far as what our daily life will be like when the place is available for showing, here is what we decided. The house goes on the market on a Tuesday. That week, we can easily leave the house vacant from 9-5; the kids are at school and we'll be at work. Jim will state that during those hours, people should call the home phone, and if there's no answer they're free to come over. For other times, the listing will say "by appointment; young children." Apparently this is a standard practice for occupied properties. Of course, many (most) people do their house shopping on the weekend. The first weekend that our house will be open is Sept 6-7, and we can expect those days to be the busiest. He said that the big time is 12noon-7pm. We need to make some plan to be out of the house on those two days. Maybe we will call in a favor from neighbors, or maybe we'll go out of town for the weekend.

Jim warned me that not all realtors are maximally considerate of the occupants and that people will drop by unannounced. For those people, he said, just don't stress about the fact that there are toys on the floor and dishes on the table. They will understand, and it's not worth taking extreme measures.

After that first week and weekend, Jim said, we should not make any special arrangements to vacate the property. We'll just live here like we do now and let people in one at a time.

Jim will not hold an open house. He says the main purpose of an open house is for the listing agent to promote themselves, and he has no interest in that (since he's not normally a listing agent). He repeatedly reminds me that what we need is one buyer. His professional opinion is that having dozens of people tramping through the house, at an open house or on any other day, just doesn't correlate with finding that buyer. What we really have going for us in this market is that we are going to be one of very few houses available in this neighborhood in this price range. Whoever wants to move here for this amount of money, we're it.