"Selling our house was fun!" said no one ever

Our house is sold as of 3/19/18 and we're DONE! But here's what happened over the last month...

Our house went on the market last month. And within ten minutes there were 3 scheduled showings. The count just kept going up and and up and up over the entire weekend. In all there were 36 scheduled showings on top of the open house on Saturday and Sunday. We received 10 offers in all, some of which blew our minds! And we told buyers we were going to make a decision on Sunday. The day after it listed, we even had someone ask what price it would take to forget waiting till Sunday and accept their offer then and now! We really weren't expecting such a huge response. But seriously, this area in Colorado is really booming in real estate.

For the weeks prior to listing, our agent had her eyes on other houses with similar specs in our neighborhood to see what they were selling for so we could pick the perfect listing price. Lucky for us, even though we only had a 3 bedroom house, it has an awesome mountain view with a walkout basement to open space behind our house. We just laid a concrete patio last summer too, remember? Not many houses have those things and they seemed to be main selling points so we were able to list a little higher than the other houses that had 3 bedrooms. As well as the school district our house fell in being desirable. Plus we put in those new carpets and white cabinets. It really looked adorable inside with the furniture the stager set up too.

So all weekend our agent was sending us emails "offer #1, offer #2, offer #3" and each one kept getting better and better. We kept getting notifications of more and more showings being scheduled, and we kept receiving feedback from buyers, which was fun to read.

So Sunday afternoon comes, and our realtor sends everyone who put in an offer an email of what the highest bid was, and if they wished to raise their bid to compete, to do so before 6pm. No one countered back because the highest offer was actually pretty high and they probably didn't think they could compete with that. I know our house didn't appraise for price of the highest bid, but the buyers included a huge appraisal gap coverage in their offer, so we were pretty much guaranteed all that extra money. So we picked them, even though they were the only ones who didn't include a letter because hey, money talks and we're having twins. Our agent called their agent and our house was in contract! Not bad for one weekend on the market.

That was great and all, but next came the worst of the worst. The inspection and the inspection resolutions. An inspector went to our house to do his thing and found SO many nit-picky things that appeared to be an issue. Some big, some small. This was to be expected. However, the buyers wanted EVERYTHING that he found to be fixed. That is not typical. They wanted a new roof (some hail damage from a few years back but no leaks), new windows (a few had broken seals but were otherwise functional), new fireplace (because inspector found tiny gas leak when it was turned on for one second, much like when a gas grill puffs gas out right when you turn it on), a sump pump installed in a sump pit where there never was a sump pump to begin with (I think the buyers agent needed to retake House Anatomy 101). They wanted the furnace not only inspected but certified because it's not brand new for whatever reason but works perfectly. Typically not many people will certify a furnace. There was a crack in the top of a toilet lid (go get a new one!), and a "faulty flusher" which we never actually figured out what the hell they meant because all three toilets flushed just fine over the last 3 years, plus a multitude of other smaller things that they could've done themselves with a wrench or a $20 trip to Home Depot.

Ok, so we counter back saying, we'll have the roof looked at because yea we did have a hail storm two years ago, you're not getting new windows because they are functional, nor are you getting a new fireplace (god that one was hilarious to me), but someone will look further at the fireplace to make sure the gas leak the inspector found isn't dangerous. They also didn't get a sump pump put in the sump pit where there never was a sump pump to begin with. And we will fix the leak in the sink and put in some sink stoppers ourselves.

You know, their agent could've asked for things a bit more nicely. She really made her buyers look like jerks when it was she that was being the aggressive jerk. Like instead of saying they want NEW EVERYTHING, she could've said they'd like a credit for this or that to be replaced, or a second opinion on some of the other things. Because the fireplace didn't need to be replaced! It just needed to be cleaned, sheesh. Can you imagine if we put in a new fireplace when all it needed was to be cleaned? She even said her buyers were considering walking away while we were right in the middle of all this, arranging for roofers to and inspectors to fix these things for them. Um, ok? I don't respond well to threats, bitch so try again.

Then to top it all off, the cherry on top, the nail in my coffin...our mother fucking HOA decided to send us a notice that our house was "in violation" and needed to be painted! And A WEEK before closing! So we were responsible for having that done too. We didn't even get the notice in the mail because our mail is being forwarded, so the first time we heard this was in an email from our realtor and it was just shocking.

Apparently the HOA does this on purpose right before a house sells because they know it will be resolved quickly in order to get the house sold and to keep the neighborhood looking nice. It's fucking bullshit and slimy and cheap.

Thankfully, our insurance covered the roof and 3 of the sides of the house to be painted. So we really weren't put out too much.

In the end, the buyers basically got a brand new house but it stressed me out a lot to the point I had to turn my phone off a few times to avoid getting our realtor's texts about their requests and other surprises. Thank god they overbid because for all the stress their agent put us through, it wouldn't have been worth it. All in all, they ended up with a new roof, new house paint, $1000 credit for windows, a certified furnace, a cleaned and inspected fireplace, a fixed leaky sink (took literally one turn of the wrench), and their "faulty flusher" remained "faulty" because we never could figure out what was wrong with it. And don't forget the new carpets and painted cabinets we had done before we even listed. Man, they got a great house!

But our own agent in all of this was amazing. She and her husband (who is a real estate lawyer) work together as a team so we felt pretty safe and covered in all our contract wording. Plus, she was just as dry and sarcastic as we were in our text exchanges anytime some silly little thing would come up from the other agent. She definitely made the experience much more tolerable and she was just an overall nice and smart person.

We still have a lot to do in our new house too. We need to get our own windows replaced due to leaking seals (you can't even see outside in some due to the condensation inside but we never asked for new ones!), we need to fix the backyard landscaping, we need a new refrigerator because it won't get colder than 54 degrees, we need a minivan, we need lots of twin gear, and we need to save money for diapers and formula.

So yea, selling a house while pregnant definitely sucks and can get ugly-stressful. But like I said, we made money in the end because they overbid. I hope they take care of their brand new house. And good luck with that HOA.