Move In, Sell House
This evening is my second evening in a shiny new house. There is an oft-quoted bit about how buying a house (sometimes "moving") is one of the three most stressful things you can do. To this I say, "Fah!" This is my sixth move - 10th if you count two transients - and the first one to give me any real worries. This is also the first time I've ever had to sell a house.
The trouble is, I really liked our previous (first!) house. Six years ago, when Julie and I were house shopping, we walked in the door, looked around, had a brief telepathic nod-based discussion, and said, "Yep. This one. We'll take it." We even offered more than the asking price because there was an old lady leaving as we arrived and we thought she had buying eyes.
Our adorable puppy Daisy grew up there. In that house, we carved many pumpkins with friends and family. It even has Greg's room where he came home to sleep when he was tiny. There is an emotional attachment is what I'm saying.
We planned this move so that we would buy and move into our new house, then sell the old one while it was empty. This plan seemed brilliant because (a) we do not have nice things and (b) this sounded like the "relaxed" way to do it.
It is not relaxed. Now that we are moved, I'm spending most of my extra time fixing up the old house (drywall repair, cleaning, light plumbing, this week I'll learn to fix tile, etc). I'm even going to take an extra day off work this week so I can - work. Because of the emotional attachment, I'm going about this in the dumbest possible way too. When deciding what to do, the measure I hold everything against is not "How will spending this time help me recover money and how much?", but rather, "I want the next owner to love this house as much as we did. It must be perfect and effervescent with love and coziness!" Trying to clean carpet that has seen 6+ years (it was not new when we got it) of us, dog, cat, and tiny little dude until it is effervescent is not easy.
So what is the lesson here? Don't get attached to stuff? Learn to be a cold cyborg when emotions try to intrude on business? Beats me. I'm just excited that I'm learning some new skills and I've collected a few new tools in the last few weeks.
The trouble is, I really liked our previous (first!) house. Six years ago, when Julie and I were house shopping, we walked in the door, looked around, had a brief telepathic nod-based discussion, and said, "Yep. This one. We'll take it." We even offered more than the asking price because there was an old lady leaving as we arrived and we thought she had buying eyes.
Our adorable puppy Daisy grew up there. In that house, we carved many pumpkins with friends and family. It even has Greg's room where he came home to sleep when he was tiny. There is an emotional attachment is what I'm saying.
We planned this move so that we would buy and move into our new house, then sell the old one while it was empty. This plan seemed brilliant because (a) we do not have nice things and (b) this sounded like the "relaxed" way to do it.
It is not relaxed. Now that we are moved, I'm spending most of my extra time fixing up the old house (drywall repair, cleaning, light plumbing, this week I'll learn to fix tile, etc). I'm even going to take an extra day off work this week so I can - work. Because of the emotional attachment, I'm going about this in the dumbest possible way too. When deciding what to do, the measure I hold everything against is not "How will spending this time help me recover money and how much?", but rather, "I want the next owner to love this house as much as we did. It must be perfect and effervescent with love and coziness!" Trying to clean carpet that has seen 6+ years (it was not new when we got it) of us, dog, cat, and tiny little dude until it is effervescent is not easy.
So what is the lesson here? Don't get attached to stuff? Learn to be a cold cyborg when emotions try to intrude on business? Beats me. I'm just excited that I'm learning some new skills and I've collected a few new tools in the last few weeks.
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