I loved my house.
Yes, my husband Tony and I had decided to sell it. We needed something bigger and wanted to live in a neighborhood closer to family. But still, I loved it, the old windows and original hardwood floors, the blues and greens I had painted the rooms, the fireplace, the way the sunlight came in during the afternoons, the French doors, the flat backyard, how the confederate vine I planted our first fall now covered the little fence out front.
We brought our baby home to this house. There are pictures of us posing by the front door, where a friend had hung a wreath of pink bows. In the photos, my stomach still pooches out beneath a white T-shirt shirt.
I threw Tony a fortieth birthday party here. I learned to cook in this kitchen and hosted dinners on my back deck. I held my daughter countless afternoons in a wicker rocking chair on our front porch, just watching the cars go by.
Sure, I knew it wasn’t perfect. But—have I already said this?—I loved my house.
So when we put it on the market, and our real estate agent assured us he loved it too, I fully expected it to sell in no time. It didn’t. We didn’t even get any offers. OK, the hard truth is nobody came to look at our house twice.
Tony worried about whether we would have to drop the price. He calculated how much cash we would take out at different sale prices—and what we would then be able to afford for our next home. Very practical.
Not me. I hurt. Did these people not see what a special little house we had?
After three months, the contract with our agent expired. We adored him, but we had to face facts. Something was wrong; our house wasn’t selling. We had chosen our next dream house, across the street from Tony’s brother’s family. I imagined our daughter’s childhood, playing with her cousins each afternoon, and I fretted that this perfect house would sell before we could make an offer.
We hired a new agent, Connie, who seemed aggressive. Every time she came by, I was near tears by the time she left. She thought we should drop the price. That was OK. The hard part was all the changes she wanted us to make. She and I spent at least an hour walking through the house, as she ruthlessly pointed out every flaw. I took notes on a legal pad.
The antique Chinese vases my father had given me had to go. There was too much furniture. It made the house look small. The counter tops needed to be replaced, and the exterior was begging for a paint job. Could we put the high chair in the attic? We needed flower pots on the front porch and a handyman to fix a million rough spots, like the discolored walls in the shower.
But she had noticed the French doors, right? And the hardwood floors?
Apparently not. Connie was all business, moving furniture and e-mailing me names of painters. She took down our personal photographs and suggested I store most of my favorite furniture elsewhere. Tony was fine with it; he wanted to sell the house for as much as possible, as fast as possible. I, on the other hand, walked around like a wounded animal.
Then, before the handyman had shown up, before we had agreed on a price with the painters, something cool happened. A house hunter called his wife from the living room and told her he had found their home. He loved it. She came to look at it, and they made an offer that night. She was expecting their first baby.
Maybe the reduced furniture made the house look bigger. Maybe he was able to envision his family there because there were no pictures of mine. Who knows. I was just relieved that a new owner would truly love this house. We bought the home we had been eying, and six months later, I am almost as attached to it. My toddler runs up and down the long hallway, and she shrieks with joy when her cousins appear at the front door, which is often. In our bedroom hangs a painting—a gift from a very dear friend—of our last house, with its front porch and blooming fence vine. I will always love that house.
P.S. I talked to an expert on getting your house ready for sale. It turns out that Connie was doing all the “right” things. To get tips on staging your home—that’s the official term these days—see Selling Your Home? Tips on Sprucing It Up.
