Holy cow — we sold our house.
(Pause while Sherry reacts — that sentence is always a trigger.)
Now that the inspection and appraisal are complete and the closing date is on the calendar, we finally feel safe announcing it to the internet. We waited until this point before sharing the “we sold our house” news last time, too. Nothing is official until everyone signs in early June, but so far things are moving smoothly.
Some background: Sherry wanted to sell FSBO (For Sale By Owner) again. She pointed out that avoiding the seller’s 6% Realtor commission could save us nearly $10,000 or more. Even if the buyer had an agent, we’d only pay 3% instead of 6%, so the math looked compelling. I was less certain — I remembered the stress from our last sale and was curious about the agent experience — so we compromised. We agreed to try FSBO for a week. If that didn’t generate interest we’d list it on the MLS ourselves for a small fee (that’s what got us a buyer last time), and if there still weren’t offers after a few weeks we’d consider hiring a Realtor.
Here’s how it all unfolded:
Friday, April 26: Anne, the Realtor who helped us buy our new house, checked in to ask if our current home was on the market yet. She had buyers looking for a ranch and thought ours would be a great fit. We told her we planned to list in four days; she said she’d call if her buyers wanted to see it then. (This is a reenactment, and it made Sherry laugh-cry.)
Saturday & Sunday, April 27–28: We spent the weekend finishing last-minute projects and staging the house in case we got quick interest. (We’ll share a full post about our staging process soon.)
Monday, April 29
- 2:00 pm: Anne called — her buyers were excited to see our house and wanted to visit the next day at 2pm. Yikes!
- 2:30 pm: Reality check: we hadn’t made a flyer or set a price. Time to hustle.
- 3:00 pm: Frantic cleaning commenced. When did Clara accumulate so many toys? Storage ottomans became our best friend.
- 9:30 pm: After checking comparable listings, we set a list price and put together a flyer.
- 12:30 am: Computer crashed while printing the flyer; the file was lost and we were too tired to recreate it that night.
Tuesday, April 30
- 7:00 am: Early start to recreate the flyer and proofread our post announcing the new house.
- 9:00 am: Flyer printed — more cleaning to make the house show-ready.
- 10:00 am: Post published and comments started rolling in, but we realized the tub caulk looked grimy and needed attention.
- 1:30 pm: The house looked presentable, though we were sweaty messes. Luckily, Anne would handle the showing.
- 1:45 pm: Anne arrived early to see the updates since her last visit.
- 1:55 pm: The buyers arrived early, too, so we left them to look around without hovering.
- 2:00 pm: With Clara and our dog Burger in tow, we killed time at a nearby dog-friendly mall — we even browsed Banana Republic and Build-A-Bear.
- 3:00 pm: An hour later, no call from Anne. We tried calling but hit voicemail.
- 3:15 pm: Clara was overdue for her nap and restless, so we assumed Anne had forgotten to call and headed home.
- 3:30 pm: Pulling onto our street we saw Anne and the buyers getting into their cars — they’d been at the showing for an hour and a half. Nice sign!
- 3:31 pm: Anne called to say they loved the house and would sleep on it and crunch numbers before getting back to us.
- 4:00 pm: We were excited and nervy, answering emails and comments while fielding interest from other locals.
- 8:00 pm: We emailed a few more flyers and scheduled another showing for 11am the next morning.
- Midnight: House cleaned; we crashed.
Wednesday, May 1
- 5:00 am: Sherry couldn’t sleep and started drafting a Q&A post about the new house.
- 5:30 am: I headed to the gym; Sherry was already up.
- 7:30 am: Back from the gym; Clara woke and prepared for a day with Grammy.
- 10:00 am: Post published, counters tidied, and the house was prepped for the second showing.
- 11:00 am: Potential buyers arrived with their agent; we took a walk while they toured the house.
- 11:30 am: Someone who received a flyer called and wanted to see the house that afternoon.
- Noon: Second showing finished; the agent said they liked it and had lender questions.
- 2:30 pm: Clara returned from Grammy’s and a third interested buyer — without an agent — showed up. I gave them a tour while Sherry took a walk with Burger.
- 3:00 pm: Third showing wrapped up — they seemed interested but not as much as the earlier visitors.
- 3:30 pm: Anne called with an offer from the couple who toured on Monday. It was strong, though $5,000 below asking. We thanked her and took time to consider.
- 4:00 pm: We weighed our options and I called the agent from the morning showing to let him know there was an offer on the table. He asked us to hold tight — they would present an offer within a few hours.
- 7:00 pm: A second offer arrived; it was weaker than the first, but useful for comparison. We asked Anne to propose a middle ground: $3,000 above their offer, which still sat $2,000 below our asking price.
- 7:15 pm: Anne called back — the buyers accepted the new price and would bring paperwork within the hour.
- 8:30 pm: We signed the contracts. Our house was officially under contract — less than 36 hours after the first showing. We wanted to celebrate wildly, but exhaustion won out.
Next steps include a few inspection items, scheduling a final termite inspection, and packing up for the move. It’s shaping up to be a busy month.
We’re incredibly grateful and relieved at how smoothly this FSBO process has gone. Like last time, we’ll pay 3% to the buyer’s agent but saved nearly $10,000 by acting as our own seller’s agent and handling marketing ourselves. The market seems to be improving — many homes in our area are getting contracts within days or weeks when priced and staged well — so that’s encouraging for anyone thinking of selling.
We thought a reader might buy our house because of the blog, but, as with our first sale, the buyer wasn’t a reader and didn’t find the house through our site. It turned out to be serendipity: we kept Anne in the loop and she happened to have a buyer searching for an updated, one-level ranch like ours. That’s a reminder you don’t need a blog to sell your house — good updates and thoughtful staging helped a lot.
This sale felt very different from our first experience in 2010, when we had 14 showings over more than three weeks and used multiple promotional channels like Craigslist, FSBO sites, MLS, and a yard sign. That process was stressful too, so we’re counting our lucky stars at how fast this one moved. Right now we plan to move into the new house in about three weeks — time to start packing!