Selling a House in Illinois

First I'd like to start off by saying that my house was built in 1945 so it was rather old and needed a lot of work getting up to date ready for a sale. The previous owners were house-flippers who cleverly covered up all the bad spots about the house only for me and my wife to find later. The house I owned was a 3 bedroom, 1 bath, 2 living rooms, and a small kitchen at about 1300 square foot. It was a 1-story ranch style house in southern Illinois with a decent sized yard plenty of trees and few close neighbors. When I first bought the house, I had recently graduated from college and was ready to get something more permanent for my wife and I and our 7 animals (3 dogs, 2 cats, 2 ferrets). The house size was perfect for us and it had a backyard and small porch that was big enough for the dogs to run around.

A Reason To Sell

Over the summer we found out that my wife's mom was diagnosed with a terrible illness and we decided to move to Florida to support her when she started undergoing treatment. We also disliked the area we lived so the choice came easy. We lived in a college town and soon found this was no longer a priority of ours and we wanted to move to a location that had more stuff to do. Living in a small town is nice for awhile but eventually you get bored after seeing and doing it all. My wife also disliked her job and I was lucky enough to be able to take my job with me. Since all the timing and feelings were right, we decided to put up the house for sale.

Getting It Up To Speed

The price range for the house was under $100,000 and the absorption rate for houses in the area is about 8 months (yikes!), so we had our work cut out for us. As I mention, my house was old so this meant that I needed to put some work into it to get the house ready for the inspector. My roof was at the point that it needed replaced. Simple patches were no longer holding the water out and it was time to get a contractor. We invested several thousands of dollars in a new roof but it was worth it. My wife is an avid HGTV fan and she was set on making the landscaping into that perfect curb appeal. We built up stone rings around a large tree in the back and planted in between the tree and the stone. She also bought nice plants for the front and trimmed the bad stuff off. We built railings on our deck and gave it plant hangers. We also repainted much of the interior, chemical washed the siding, did touch up paint on the outside, and reinforced the spongy floor in the house.

The Transition

Now that the house was starting to look in shape, my wife moved south to get our Florida residence ready for the transition. I stayed in Illinois to deal with the realtors and inspectors and to keep the house in shape for the sale. We decided that I would stay there for a few months in the initial selling period to make sure it all goes smoothly. If we ended up having a slow turn-over rate then I would probably also move.

Setting The Stage

After the cosmetics of the house were done, I massively de-cluttered the house. Since I was still living there for the time being, it was absolutely necessary to keep the house in great condition which meant cleaning on a daily basis. I believe that de-cluttering your house is one of the best ways to make your house marketable. If you have toys and junk furniture and stuff all over your walls it makes the house look messy and it closes in the space. When you clean out and organize the spaces, they are much more appealing to buyers. The walls were repainted into nuetral color and most of the wall decorations were removed. I tossed several pieces of junk furniture out and gave a bunch away. If it wasn't winter I would of had a garage sale, but the season didn't allow for it.

The Realtors

So after we setup an open house for the local realtors, they came and gave their comments. This was an excellent way to get their opinions on the house before any potential buyers saw it. They saw stuff that I didn't even think of. For example, one realtor noticed a few bugs in the bulb light fixtures that I missed and saw some torn up window insulation around the edge of the windows. One other thing they noticed that I didn't was the "pet smell". Having many pets is great, but let's face it, our pouches and felines stink. This was the single most difficult task to remove the pet odor.

After getting their reactions, I worked on fixing these problems. I cleaned the light fixtures and window insulation. The pet smell was more difficult. When you live there, you hardly notice pet smell because your ol'factory senses keep the smell out of your mind. The first thing I did was sweep and vacuum several times through out the house. I then washed all the hard floors with a good cleaning solution. After that, I bought some pet deodorizing powder to sprinkle on the carpets. In my opinion, I found that this works much better than using a steam-vac for your carpet. When I used a liquid vac, it moisturized the carpet which brought all the smell out of the carpet and into the air. Afterwards, the carpet still smelled the same. The powder de-odorizer sits in the carpet for awhile and absorbs the bad smell. Afterwards you just vacuum it up and dump it the trash. This is also a lot easier to do multiple times throughout the week. The next step is to get some "smelly-goods" for the air. I find that the best ones were the Glade & Airwick plugins that use the small vials of liquid. It heats them up and releases a small amount of fragrance occassionally. These even worked to cover up the smell of my ferrets which is a big task. The second visit by the realtor was much better and they noticed no bad smells from the house. It's important to swallow your pride and be as open to the realtors opinions as possible.

The Offers

Being the slow season, we didn't get many offers on the house. Not because the house was bad, but more because the economy has been terrible and people simply weren't buying especially in our area (a lower income area). After a month and half of having no one look at it, I was starting to get worried. We had an open house and only had two people look. My realtor then followed up on a lead she had. A women was moving down from up north from the Chicago area and a few days to look. She liked our house but at the same time she also like a house the street. Our realtor called and said she placed an offer on the other house but said she liked ours also. We were really disappointed but what can you do? As fate has it, the inspections for the other house fell through. The other house had roofing problems and a bad furnace which killed the deal for her. She soon placed an offer on my house and it was time for inspections.

The Inspections

I was really nervous about the inspections because we have an old house and the electrical has not been replaced in a long time. I happened to be home when the inspector showed up and I showed him around to the electrical boxes. I noticed him staring intently on my main breaker box and I thought "oh no, here we go..." and then he relieved my by saying that if my box was a fuse box version of the same model and company, I would of had to replace it. Since I had the breaker version, it was fine. All the other inspections went through without a hitch. On the inspection report, it turns out my furnace was much older than I thought (it looked in good shape). The lady almost broke the deal because the furnace was old. They also said the gutters need cleaned and I needed a carbon-monoxide detector in the back of the house.

The Closing

The final offer on the house almost didn't happen because the lady was unsure of the furnace. To keep the deal going, we offered a 2-year home warranty which put a garauntee on the furnace and appliances. I cleaned the gutters and put up a new carbon monoxide detector in the house. I was so happy when the realtor called and said they accepted the deal. I think most of the luck came with the lady being rushed to buy a house, but I can't help but feel that my persistence and resolutions for making the house better also closed the deal. It just shows that if you work hard and put out effort that you can close a house, even in the hardest of times. When the final papers were signed, I closed on my house exactly 3 months after putting it up for sale. I wish anyone else the same kind of luck I had when selling my house. Good luck everyone!