I am continuing my preparation for unloading my condo, and it is a somewhat slow and tedious process.   I met with my good friend Dave last night for drinks and to talk about selling property.   He is going through the same process right now, and fortunately, he has done the FSBO gig a few times, so he is an invaluable source for information.

I get a little overwhelmed at times with the sheer amount of “stuff” and details there are when it comes to real estate transactions.   However, as Dave has reminded me of several times, when it comes to selling your property, the buyer actually does most of the work.

This made me feel better.  After all, my only charge at this time is getting the house in tip-top shape.  Of course, there are a few documents I need to prepare beforehand, such as a disclosure statement (listing any defects or problems with the place), and setting a price, which for me has been pretty easy since it is a condo, and I have several identical units around me for sale that I can compare mine to.   And of course, there are several great online resources to find information.  Zillow is great – I can see exactly which units around me have sold recently, and for how much.

The one thing Dave told me is that you want to make sure you get your pricing right.  He said that the biggest pain is having your home on the market for many months, and having to clean thoroughlly and quickly each time someone wants a showing – not an easy task if you have a toddler running around.

Today I went online and found a standard disclosure statement, and we have already put the sign in the window!   My next step is to find places online to post my property.   I’ll post about that tomorrow!

My wife came out of the bathroom in the condo that we are getting ready to sell this morning, and as dryly as possible informed me that putting bleach on your moldy caulk will turn it green. We both paused for a moment and then started laughing. “Caulk” is not one of those words that rolls of the tongue lightly if you know what I mean.

We are both cleaning and scrubbing like crazy to make the place look as presentable as possible. I am working on painting – It is highly recommended that you paint at least the entryway of your house before trying to sell it, so that is what I am doing. My wife was trying to clean the tile and caulk in the bathroom, and she wasn’t having much luck with the caulk end of it. We decided that we needed to replace the caulk in the bathroom.

I went to Home Depot this morning, in search of more caulk. When I got there, I couldn’t find it. You’d think it would be in the plumbing section, but it wasn’t there. So, I started looking for someone to ask. But, as the word is a bit – hmmm…… I wasn’t quite prepared to walk up to a salesperson and tell them I was looking for some caulk. It just wouldn’t sound right. And to add to this, there are different colors of caulk – white caulk, almond caulk, and clear caulk.

I ended up saying “I am looking for caulking for my bathroom” – adding “ing” to the end. The guy took me right over to the paint section, where it was right next to the brushes and spackle.

At any rate, caulk is a funny thing. Almost as funny as the fact that Home Depot shopping carts pull to the right or the left almost every time. Have you noticed?

Good thing I don’t own a schitzu.

Funny Huh?

I have a condo that I have owned for 5 years now, and since I now have a small family, it is time for us to move into a bigger place.  We have contemplated renting it out and becoming landlords, but we just don’t want to deal with all of that hassle.   We just want to get rid of the place and start anew.  The place is really nice, don’t get me wrong!   As anyone with a 2 year old might know, adding anything else to your schedule (like being a landlord) isn’t an easy thing.

My wife and I have decided to go “FSBO.”  I’ll admit, we have never done this before, and we really don’t know what we are doing, but we are doing to give it a shot!   There are lots of good books out there on the subject, and lots online that will help.

We just posted our place online, and we are a bit nervous that we might start getting interest (and excited at the same time).  I guess if someone makes an offer, we’ll be flying by the seat of our pants figuring out the process.

What I have decided to do is to log on my blog (nice rhyme, eh?) here how it goes, and the steps of the process start to finish.  I hope it helps anyone who is thinking of doing FSBO.

David

I am excited to announce a new section of the website dedicated to Corporate Housing in Canada.   I am even more excited that even though this section is only about a week old, it is already getting some traffic, and is ranking in organic searches!  From what I understand, there are 8 really good markets in Canada for Corporate Housing, and Toronto is at the top of the heap. According to camagazine.com – the Corporate Housing market in Canada has surpassed $170 million (2003) and all indicators say that this market will continue to grow.   With Canada’s robust economy, I’ll bet it will.

As far as the site goes, I don’t know how popular that section will be.   It will be interesting to see if I get more listings from corporate housing by owner people or from actual companies.   Or, will it turn out to be more “corporate housing wanted” type ads that I am seeing a fair number of on the regular rental pages.

At any rate, I’ll be adding pages for the other 7 markets soon!  It will be exciting for me to track the traffic to these pages over time!