House-selling, What a Lot of (not So) Fun

About a year ago houses were selling like hot cakes in my area. Over the weekends it was even hard to drive down the road, traffic-jams in normally sleepy streets. Round-abouts were pack-jammed with Open Home -signs. Colorfully dressed Real-Estate agents placing flags in front-yards to attract all these eager buyers. It looked like a circus attraction sometimes. I fully expected them to produce a monkey or two or climb a lamp-post for the audience.If you put your house on the market last year for let's say $500.000, you could actually expect to get at least $600.000 for it.

This was a great sign, the market was "high". After at least 20 years of hearing the market was "low" this was somewhat unexpected., and we decided not to throw the confetti around just yet, caution was advisable.

But of course, we too were swept up in wanting to make big bucks, and decided that being rich was definitely our thing.(although never tried out). We too decided (like the rest of the street) to approach a Real-Estate agent for at least a valuation of the house. Before she came I had a conversation with my husband,Mr.Builder. "Are you sure you can build me exactly the same house?" I asked. "Yeees, I'm very sure". My hubby looked at me, was I doubting his ability in building? I thought back. Over the years we've built many houses, and we know what we're doing, but still. It's a lot of headaches every time."But I'm going to miss the neighbors" I said. "But we'll make a lot of money" he replied. Yes that was true, and we both had dollar-signs in our eyes.

The first one arrived in the standard big foreign car. Clad in a fluorescent jacket,(perhaps for mid-nightly visits, as to be hightly visible on moon-less nights)clipboard clutched, as if holding on for dear life, perhaps there are nasty customers around and you have to defend yourself. "Hmm" she said,"It's not finished is it?" Pointing a pencil in the air. "No, not yet, just a couple of things to do, but it's very clean" I said. She looked around. "There is no flooring". She glared at me in disgust. How could people think to sell their house with just concrete floors? Were we nuts? "That will come in time" we said.A long-drawn "Right" was the answer. She went through the house and the garden, scribbling on the clipboard. A camera came out of the foreign car and photo's were taken of every nook and cranny, from odd angles, I thought.

A week later the verdict was in. We were ecstatic with the results. However it had a couple of "buts" in the report. We could get our price but we needed to cover the floors, paint the walls, lay out a garden, preferably install under-floor heating and an air-conditioning. A nice gas-heated fire-place would give it that "ambiance" and curtains with matching quilts on the beds would complete "that look". So If we only spent about $100.000, we would be able to get $5.000 more. Now we are not silly and disregarded most of it. Besides of which, the photo's looked as if an earthquake had shaken the house so badly that it stood at a strange angle. The neighbors washing-line, normally not visible, was prominent in every photo, even the indoor-ones. And somehow the ceilings were about 80% of the picture, as well as the cat-litters . She must have been either stretched out on the floors -or standing on a ladder to take the photo's! We decided not to take this Agent and (finally) do some work on the house, in order to make a good sale. It was also a good excuse to buy more furniture and a whole new ward-robe, as well as a visit to the hair-dresser and a beautician, because I wanted to look my best.(well, you never know who shows up, do you)

After we'd done the work we thought necessary, it looked a lot better. We also spent 6 months doing it. And so we invited another brightly dressed Agent over.This proved to be really easy, since the streets in our area were teeming with them. Like flocks of exotic birds they were putting mailers in mail-boxes, these boasting about sales, and claiming they had "buyers in this area". If you believed these mailers, potential buyers were living in the City-parks in tents, cooking on open fires, suitcases around them, waiting for your house to come on the market.

This Agent was a big guy so no clipboard-clutching this time. Our house looked like a show-home this time. I too watch all those TV-pro grammes where Designers give you advise about how tho "stage" your home for the best effect. All the junk we didn't need, as well stuff we'll probably need in the future and so look for for weeks, went on the trailer, to be disposed of. Fresh flowers on the table, no overflowing ashtrays anywhere to be seen. All the doors in the house were closed, and so it stayed tidy and dust-free. I sat outside in the pouring rain, huddled under the umbrella with my 5 shivering cats. I also gave up cooking (not a great loss, since I can't cook) in order to keep the kitchen clean,and the take-aways I bought every evening we ate outside too. My fridge was covered with plastic cling-wrap; this way I didn't have to clean it. Using the bathroom was out of the question, we went to the neighbors to do this. And so we went through the misery of selling our house.

I must have had millions of people through the house, every nation in the world was represented , every language spoken,whole families enjoyed my Open Homes on Saturdays and Sundays.We were entertainment! They came in throngs through the front door and left through the back door, meanwhile pulling open all the drawers, touching everything in sight and messing up my clean house. The Agent tried to keep control over the masses, traipsing through, but had to give up in the end and stood in the kitchen, a look of utter confusion on his face. I leaned back on my banana-lounger in the garden, and re-arranged the cushions. What was he miserable about. I had done all the hard work!

After 6 months it became clear: no buyer. When we asked the Agent the answer was :"The market has slowed down again". It didn't matter anymore.I folded the banana-lounger and went back inside, without taking my shoes off: I looked around me and took off the cling-wrap from the fridge. Then I cooked a good meal and made a huge mess doing it. I threw the flowers out, and re-arranged the furniture, to my taste, not the Agent's. I took the huge sign out of the front-yard. I waved at my neighbors. The cats curled up on the couch, shedding hairs everywhere. My husband came home, took his socks off and left them where they fell.We decided to stay, because this is not just a house, this is My Home.