You Need Thick Skin When Selling Your House

After all the hard work to get the house ready to sell, I wasn’t ready for the comments that came out of peoples’ mouths during the showings. I didn’t realize that thick skin was a requirement.

Even though I knew the house wasn’t in the greatest condition, it was the best it had looked in years. It seemed so big without all the stuff in it and I was feeling good going into the showing weekend.

The basement needed a lot of work still, the bedroom doors upstairs had holes in them, the garage was full to the top because we hadn’t touched it, and the pool was still laying flat on the ground in the backyard. And the side of the house was still leaning in.

The house was listed “as is – fixer upper” and disappointingly way less than the other houses in the neighborhood. Other than the wall in the bedroom, the rest of the house really didn’t seem that bad anymore. The house had come a long way.

With a few more months or even a year or two, the house could’ve been fixed up enough to sell it for what it was really worth. We didn’t have that much time though.

We needed it to sell fast.

Friday came and it was time to start the showings. There were already around 20 booked.

As hard as I tried to not watch the cameras from my daughter’s house, I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to know what people were saying.

It was pretty horrible and I shouldn’t have listened at all. People aren’t all that nice when they go looking at houses. Apparently they’re always looking for the worst.

Here are some of the comments:

“It wasn’t worth the drive over.”

“It looks like they never fixed anything.”

“Why would John (the realtor) even bother me for this one?” (He was an investor who managed to find every single flaw in about 5 minutes. It was harsh.)

I didn’t even have to worry about the basement because 95% of the people never even went down there.

It was disheartening to say the least.

I was watching the new house slip away before my eyes every time another showing came and went.

Sunday ended without a single offer or anyone even the tiniest bit interested. The cats had to come home and any other showings would involve crating them back up and loading them into the car.

Every day there were a few more showings and every time the people came and went, it was so depressing. The house looked so good but nobody seemed to like any of it.

Even the two bathrooms that we remodeled recently weren’t sparking any interest at all.

It was time to grow that thick skin and get this house sold!

We only had a few days left to make this happen.