Thursday, February 5, 2009

Meeting with real estate agents

We've been interviewing real estate agents, and have gotten a $40k swing in estimates of what we should list our house for. Isn't that crazy? We'll probably pick somewhere in the middle of the high and low estimate. Sorry if I continue to be somewhat sporadic with my posts...we're doing a TON of cleaning up!

Things we've found so far:
  • Two size 18m outfits we were given when the boys were born, tags still on. Hey, maybe we'll have a boy again and can use it!
  • Approximately 12,000 empty shoe boxes and other assorted small containers, because I always think I'm going to use them for something.
  • Bottles we received as a hand-me-down and never used.
  • A bag of VHS tapes (we have no VCR)
  • 1 gazillion books of sheet music. Oh wait, we knew we had that. TK has sheet music for basically every song written between 1970 and 1990. You think I'm exaggerating. I'm not. If it was on the radio, and had any piano or guitar parts, he's got it. It's kind of a joke. In the 16 years we've been together, I don't think I've ever stumped him by asking if he had sheet music from any song from that era. He's got a sizable collection from pre-1970 and post-1990, though not quite as completist.
We've got two closets cleaned out. That's actually a good start...there are only 8 closets in the whole house, and we cleaned out the two biggest/messiest.

We also found a local company with a focus on recycling moving boxes. You buy boxes from them...they're used (if they've got them), or new. Then you give them back when you're done and they reuse them. How cool is that?

I tried freecycle first, as obviously free is best, but since I couldn't get any there, I feel pretty good about this set up.

And I'll leave you with some silly boy stories about things they did while we were trying to talk to different real estate agents:
  • Played the drums
  • Rode a NOISY ride-on fire truck around the table where we were talking
  • Pushed a NOISY car around the table, and then the floor when we made them move
  • Climbed all over TK and I
  • Ran around like crazy men
  • And most importantly, were totally cute and completely adorable, even though they were far, far louder, and far, far more constantly noisy than they've ever been before.
One of the real estate agents said that if we really needed to, we could stay in the house out of the way while people came to see the house. She was trying to say that we didn't have to be completely inconvenienced. As she was telling us, N-man started banging on the drums, and B-man started up one of his music toys. We could barely hear her! I said I thought we'd deal with the inconvenience of leaving the house when people come by.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

If I didn't know about your love affair with footwear, I'd think you exaggerated TWELVE THOUSAND empty shoe boxes! Your work will go a lot quicker if you don't stop to count 'em. Did you put away those musical cars we gave them for Christmas? Must have, otherwise the realtor person would never have offered to have you stay in the house! HA If you need any help, we're available; just holler.

Snickollet said...

What's the name of the box company? I might need to give them a call . . .

Good luck with it all!

Nancy said...

Oh that's COOL!! Love that there's a recycle moving box company. At least someone out there is thinking.

And your boys are so funny. :)

Ronnica said...

I like the idea of recycling boxes. I've basically done that anyway, giving my used boxes to someone else to move.

Jeanne Estridge said...

I miss moving.... It's such a great incentive to get rid of stuff!

Bob said...

Gotta love the idea of reusing boxes. There's another company that I saw on ABC 15's Smart Shopper segment here in Phoenix. They're called UsedCardboardBoxes.com. They sell used boxes that have been rescued from companies that might otherwise throw them away. Their moving kits are pretty cheap, and delivery is free. Sounds like a great deal!

Denyse said...

I agree its probably more convenient to be OUT of the house when perspective buyers are there than to try to stay "out of sight". Good luck!
Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Heather said...

gotta love what you find when you move! i wanted to go through all my stuff before moving so as not to have to unpack it all again, but we didn't have time. so now, i am trying to go through it all while unpacking...and it is taking forever...