It's My House...

September 9th, 2008
It’s My House…
Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NCSome days are longer than others. Some days the focus is on money, mortgages, interest rates, terms or the cost of repairs, or the buyer’s closing costs or the seller’s net…somedays it’s making the pieces fit with timing for buyers and sellers and agents and attorneys…or setting times for appraisers and inspectors.Many days are spent reviewing a step in the process of buying…both the one we just took and the one we are about to take. Real Estate is a process of many steps.Today, I spent most of the day focusing on one house.I crawled in the crawl space enough to see there was no hanging insulation, that a vapor barrier was in place, that it appeared free of standing water and smelled like a crawl space without mildew or mold. This was a first pass. I looked under the deck for pieces of wood, erosion, problems. And I looked at every square inch of all the trim, the paint job, the gutters and downspouts, the splash blocks, the roof vents, the outside mechanical units, the bushes, the mulch, the steps in the front and the back, the slope in the front and the back, the fences and how they attached to neighbors.Inside I started in the attic looking at storage space and looking at ventilation, and pans under systems…And then, room by room, closet by closet, making notes of size, windows and detail.I looked at other storage areas off bonus rooms, counted windows, noted ceiling fans and marked lighting fixture lenses that might be missed when the window cleaners come tomorrow. They are also instructed to clean all the light fixtures in and outside the home, clean all mirrors…scrape the windows from the new paint job and clean all the windows in and out.I checked all the carpeting and noted a faded area under the sideboard and asked that the dining room carpeting be replaced and while we are at it, to check under the piano in the living room as well to make sure that had not faded as well.All the rooms were measured and measurements were compared to the floor plan.The sellers had begun moving furniture readying a load for the storage unit they have rented. Cabinets were being polished. A painter came while I was working to give a price on the dining room, a half bath and an upstairs bedroom and full bath.The seller and I talked again about the market, the price, our marketing approach and how we would develop those plans. It is clearly a partnership.As we set ourselves to wrap up, they handed me the key. They said, “It’s your house. Bring us a buyer.”
Today was another good day.
Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC