How to Sell a House in 48 Hours or Less

First off, let me start off by saying that I am not naive enough to believe that all of this happened because of something that we did. We feel so completely blessed that things worked out the way they did, and many factors worked together to make it perfect. Here is the story:

Before we left for California for Spring Break, we got everything cleaned and ready to go. We went through the house and put a lot of things in storage so that it looked clean and uncluttered. We also deep-cleaned and staged it the best we could on a small budget. We decided to take our own pictures for the listing. The difference in our home from when we moved in to now is pretty amazing. We are proud of the work that we did. Here are some before and after pictures:

Living Room

 

Kitchen

Family Room

 Master Bathroom

My awesome cousin, Darrell, was our realtor, and gave us a great deal. We wanted to make sure that he didn't have too much extra work. We told him that as soon as we left, he could start lining up showings for the house. I was hopeful that we would get lucky and sell quickly so that I didn't have to try to keep the house super clean with my three crazy boys. I was really nervous about a long, difficult sale, so we did everything we possibly could to help it sell fast.

Pricing the house was tricky. We knew that the market was on the rise, but we didn't want to overshoot and not have any interest. We bought our home at the absolute low in the real estate market in 2010. We got a good deal because the house needed a lot of work. As we were trying to price it, we looked at some comparables in the area and decided to shoot a little high on our listing price. We figured we would have to negotiate down a little bit, and wanted to have enough left to afford a new home in Provo. I thought the asking price was a little high, but Jonathon convinced me to go for it.

We left for California on Friday afternoon. We stayed the night in Winnemucca, NV and then kept going the next day. We had not even made it to my Grandparents house when we received the call from Darrell...

Our first showing made us a full price offer!

We were in complete shock. Not only was it a full price offer, but they offered to pay extra to cover closing costs. Darrell sent us the offer via email, and when we made it to my Grandparents in Salinas, we signed the offer and sent it back. The only thing that they wanted was that the chicken coop be included. Haha... we love our chickens, but we weren't about to turn down such a great offer. We could not believe that our plans (hopes!) had actually worked.

The buyers wanted to close at the end of April, but our kids didn't get out of school until the beginning of June. We decided to ask them if they would be willing to rent back the property to us until the end of school. We were hopeful, but we knew that the offer was good enough that we were going to have to figure out another plan if they wanted to move in immediately after closing. To our surprise and HUGE relief, they agreed to the leaseback. We were so grateful!

With Darrell's help, we got all of the documents together, got through the inspection and appraisal without any problems, and were set to close on Friday, April 24. I just couldn't believe how smoothly everything was going, but then on Thursday, we got a notice that they hadn't gotten the loan yet and needed an extension. We had already made on offer on a house in Provo and needed to close soon or we wouldn't be able to purchase the new home. I was a nervous wreck! The buyers assured us that there wasn't a problem with the loan and that they just needed a few days to get the documents together. We signed the extension and just prayed that everything worked out.

Luckily, the buyers got everything together, and their loan went through. We signed the closing papers last night and are completely thrilled with how everything worked out. We are now renters until our new home closes next week! We are blessed beyond belief.

Hopefully, next week I will be able to post another exciting home story. Here is a sneak peek at our DREAM HOME that we are buying next week.