It was a stunningly beautiful day here in Bend, this first day of May. The first part of the morning was spent taking pictures down from the walls, part of our gradual effort to get ready for the move coming up in June, and not long after we’d finished boxing up a bunch of paintings and pictures, I got a phone call. Apparently the boss was heading in to the office to do some work, but found himself locked out.

So, off we went to make a day of it. After getting the boss into the building, we swung by the storage unit to drop off the boxed goods and then drove over to check out the progress on the new house. It’s coming along nicely, and quickly. There were people there working on it, so we didn’t wander around much.

Afterwards we took a leisurely route up Awbrey Butte on our way to lunch, and stopped at a garage sale on 1st Street, which turned out to be one of the most unusual streets I’ve seen here in Bend: narrow, steep (there’s a big dip in the middle), overlooking the Deschutes River, and all very nice, very expensive houses. It very much reminded me of something you’d find in San Francisco, which is very cool. I’d never seen that street before, though I don’t make it a habit to wander about Awbrey Butte much.

We had a decent lunch at Cousins, out on the deck overlooking the river. Perfect day for an outdoor lunch, even if it was a tad breezy. After that, I took the kids home while my wife went out for a bit. The rest of the day was enjoyed at home, playing outside with the kids.

Ah, May Day.

It was an utterly beautiful day today here in Central Oregon, right around 70 degrees and sunny all day. Raked some leaves, played with the kids outside, just gorgeous. And the best part is, I didn’t have to be stuck at work on the first nice day of the year :)

Here are some tips and things to consider when you’re getting ready to sell your home.

Pack up and/or throw out half of everything in the house.

This does several things. First, you’ve made your house more presentable to a buyer; the less you have in the house, the more the buyer can picture his or her own things there. Second, it forces you to evaluate your possessions and help you prioritize what’s important. Finally, you’ll be half packed!

Clean everything. Twice.

Even though you think you’ve cleaned everything, chances are, you haven’t. Clean again. Buyers are like my wife: they’ll look everywhere.

Put away all pictures and personal items.

Buyers want to try to picture themselves in the home, and personal items detract from that. Try to make the home as neutral as possible. This includes clearing everything off of the refrigerator door, even if you think the magnets on there are neutral.

Put away small valuables.

Well, you just never know when someone might have sticky fingers.

Get an inspection.

This is a preventative measure which uncovers any nasty surprises that the buyer’s inspector (make no mistake, the buyer will have an inspector go over your house) might find and allows you to address them first. It also shows the buyer that you have taken the initiative and are serious about selling.

Fix any problems you can from the inspection, and see if you can get another inspection report issued.

We did this, and the inspector was nice enough to come back and is re-issuing the inspection report at no charge. The fewer the issues that a buyer can try to use as leverage in negotiating the sale, the better.

Since it’s all official, I guess I’d better blog it: We’re buying a new house! (Insert fanfare sound effects here.)

Not just any old house, either, but one that we’re buying through the company I’m working for, Pennbrook Homes (so essentially I’m getting even more into bed with my employer, yeah yeah…). Pennbrook builds homes in the area and we’re choosing one in the Terrango Glen development up in northeast Bend; we’ll be moving across town. Of course, in order to make this work, we need to sell our current home, so the last couple of weeks we’ve been focused on cleaning, decluttering and packing up half of what we own to make our place presentable. (Yeah, that’s the sucky part.)

As an aside, anyone looking to move to beautiful Bend, Oregon? We can set you up with a killer house on a large lot in southeast Bend in a great, quiet neighborhood. Great location!

Heh. Anyway. I’m debating whether I want to blog the home buying and selling process extensively, similar to what Jeremy Zawodny is doing, but I doubt I’ll write much. We already know what we’re buying and what customizations we get to pick out, so the big question mark here is selling our place. Perhaps I’ll write up some tips to selling a home as we go.

Tip #1: Get a realtor! A good one—ask around. The money you would otherwise save is much better spent on someone with the knowledge and expertise that you don’t have to sell a home.