Thinking About Selling? | Steffanie Fick Real Estate

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Thinking about selling? You need three things.

As the saying goes, timing is everything. And in real estate, this is often true, whether you are buying or selling. In my experience though, timing isn’t enough. You also need flexibility and you need a plan. With flexibility and a plan, you can have great timing, even when the unexpected happens, like a pandemic or a once-in-a-century ice storm.

My client Naomi, had a plan. She knew when she wanted to sell her house, she knew where she wanted to go when she sold, and she knew what steps she needed to take to get ready. She was also flexible, which was a good thing because, as we all know, 2020 had a way of wreaking plans, and the unexpected seems to have carried over into 2021.

Don’t worry, Naomi’s story has a happy ending. It also has a few twists and turns.

I first met Naomi while holding an open house. She lived a few doors down and stopped in because she was thinking of selling. We chatted, and she invited me to look at her home and talk about what she would need to do to get it ready.

Planning & Preparation Lay the Foundation

I can always tell the homeowners who are proud and want to take care of their home, not just to put it on the market but also because they really love their home. Naomi was one of those homeowners, and she was so delighted to share all the things she had done and the list of things she was still planning on doing. She also told me she was planning on moving across the country to be closer to her daughter but was not planning on selling for two years. So I knew she had plenty of time for all the things on her list, including finding a new home.

By the way, this was early March 2020 and that open house was the last open house I would do for six months!

You might be wondering how the pandemic and the shutdown messed with Naomi’s plans. After all, she didn’t want to sell for two years and now everything is opening up again, well within her timeline. Well, the pandemic affected all aspects of our lives, which meant it turned Naomi’s world upside down too. All the reasons for wanting to stay in Oregon went out the window and her timeline shortened—a lot.

Flexibility Keeps Things Moving

I like to stay in touch with my clients, even if we are still months (or years) away from listing. It’s just good practice and I like to know how they are doing. So, I followed up with Naomi last fall, just to check in. I’m glad I did because Naomi had stepped things up and was thinking of selling in the spring. She had taken her two-year pan and condensed it down to six months! But I knew it was realistic because she had a solid plan and she was fully prepared.

So, when February rolled around I wasn’t at all surprised that she was on top of things. She had her pod on order so she could start packing and de-cluttering. She had an excellent staging to-do list and had her new home already lined up. She was ready to go and the house was near ready to list. Good thing, too, because the next thing that happened was an epic ice-storm!

When Perfect Timing Isn’t Enough

The storm hit the day her pod was to be delivered. The week before the photographer was scheduled to shoot her house so we could list it. We got through the storm, got the house show-ready, and listed.

Now one thing you need to know is the spring real estate market here was going bonkers. Everything was moving fast. So, we had high expectations when we put Naomi’s home on the market. Of course, the unexpected happened yet again. The house sat through an open house and then another two weeks without one single offer. We held a second open house, and no one even showed up.

Turns out, people had the impression her street was too busy. Traffic can be a deterrent to would-be buyers, but it still came as a surprise given the state of the market.

Ultimately, the house did receive one offer. A full-price offer at that. Whether it was good luck, coincidence, or divine intervention, we will never know, but as Naomi tells the end of this story, I might have to believe in the latter. See, the day before the offer came in, Naomi had been out working in her yard. She’s a landscaper with a lovely yard. Her neighbors were out on a walk and stopped to ask how the sale was going. When she filled them in, they asked if she would mind if they prayed with her. So the three of them prayed together right there on her sidewalk, that she would accept the first full-price offer. The very next day, the full-price offer came through.

The moral of this story, expect the unexpected! And, if you want a happy ending, timing helps, but first, you need a plan, and then you need to be flexible because life has a funny way of messing with even the best-laid plans.

If you are thinking of buying or selling, give me a call. Every client is a new story and I love writing happy endings!