I’ve still got lots of little things and touch-ups to finish up, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and call the work at the Austin house done. Praise be to Jebus. On Sunday I grouted the patio stone I added to the front walkway, which was the last of the fairly big jobs.
Plan is to finish up all the little stuff after work this week and load up some of the stuff in the garage that I need to get out of there. Still need to arrange for carpet cleaning (and maybe general cleaning via a maid service, as I planned to do it myself but my heart is pretty far from in it at this juncture). Going to plunk some mulch in the garden beds when we actually list it, but that’s about it.
I planned on taking it easy yesterday but tricked myself into putting in a pretty solid day of work. All the patio stone and other tile is at the Main St. house now, ready to roll, and I got assorted tools and supplies shifted over from the Austin house. I also broke down and got a storage unit, as I’m accumulating too much assorted stuff I may use in future rehabs, as far as the old fridge from the Austin house, the stainless steel kitchen sink, etc. My wife and I could use extra storage for some stuff in general, too, so it’ll be nice to have the extra space.
I also registered a domain name for my rehab efforts, as far as a more business-like, professional-looking website, and need to see about getting a yard sign made and one for my truck. It’s basically going to be a “We Buy Houses in Any Condition” sort of pitch, as I realizd belatedly that I’m not putting the high-visibility nature of the Main St. house to good use, with tons of people driving by it every day. Getting ahead of myself a bit, obviously, but it’s easy enough to slap up a website and never hurts to dip my toes into those waters, even if I’m really not positioned to buy another property right now.
It’s been kind of amusing to me that when people have randomly asked me how much I plan to ask for the Main St. house (roofing guy who put on the new roof and a cable installer who showed up out of the blue to see if I was moving in and needed installation), I don’t have an immediate answer, hemming and hawwing, before finally answering.
It’s not that I don’t have a fairly firm plan (likely asking $86,500 but willing to take $80,000-$82,000), it’s just that I’m still a little hesitant at taking myself seriously, to some extent. Part of me is afraid I’ll say $86,500 and have to stand there as they guffaw and point at idiot foolish me, despite the fact that I know it’s a pretty reasonable price, have done a ridiculous amount of research and followed the MLS listings daily for nearly a year, etc. But I imagine the hesitant feeling will fade over time, as I get a little more comfortable with the horse-trading nature of the business, as well as a couple of houses under my belt as experience that I have at least a bit of a clue as to what I’m doing.
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