How We Bought and Sold in Traverse City Without Going Crazy

How did you feel when your home first went on the market?

I was excited. I think I had unrealistic expectations because we had an open house right away and I was sure we were going to have all these people and get an offer that weekend, and that was not the case at all.

At any point did you worry about the sale not going through?

No, I knew we would sell it, just maybe not for the price I was hoping for. Yeah. Yeah.

What was the hardest part about saying goodbye to your old home? 8 to 1 tradition.

Yeah, um, just all the memories. I think, you know, that's where we were when we got married and had our kids, so all of our memories, all of our first memories are there. And our neighbors are great. Every time they drive by and we were moving, everybody was saying goodbye.

And it is a great little—

yeah, yeah.

What would you say to someone who is feeling overwhelmed at trying to buy a home and sell a home at the same I think timing and patience is key.

Waiting for the right house to come along, saving during that time.

If people are able to do it financially, would you recommend handling it in the same way? Yeah. All right, well, we're here at Talon Title Agency for our second part of the journey. Yes, right.

Yeah.

So, uh, so how do you feel?

Good. Excited. Um, exhausted but excited.

Yeah, moving is really—

yes, something. Yeah.

And you did end up, I understand, using Randy Brown from Versatile Mortgage, the covered wagon, correct, or enclosed trailer. Yeah, to move. A couple of trips, or how many trips?

You know, I don't remember, honestly.

Yeah.

And all the chaos. I think it was a couple of trips.

At least two.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah, that was definitely a nice perk from Randy for sure.

Yeah. Well, can you describe the last few days leading up to closing?

Yeah. So we were renovating the house we're moving into, so it was kind of crunch time to get it livable to move in and then packing up all of our stuff with our toddlers. And then getting that house clean. But they're super excited about the new house.

And yeah, and the walkthrough was this morning. Yeah, while we were closing here. Yes, they were doing their final walkthrough. Yes, at the house that you're selling and that they're buying. Yes, which is the normal part of the process. And I always advise my buyers, try to make that as close to the closing time, and they sure hit it.

They did.

Yes, they weren't my buyers, but yeah, but they were— they sure hit it.

Yes.

So So, and they're closing with a separate title company a little bit later. And then, so actually technically, and this is an important point for you to understand, I think you already understand it, but for the viewers to understand is that while we quote unquote closed here, you signed the papers.

Yeah.

We're officially not closed until actually money is dropped into your account.

Yes. Right?

So are you coming back, by the way, are you coming back to pick up a check or are you having money?

Just wiring.

You're wiring. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, very little. I mean, there's really no risk in having funds delivered, wired into an account.

Okay.

There can be some risk to if you're wiring funds out. There's a certain procedure.

Okay. That's what I was wondering. I'm like, I've never wired before.

Yeah. If you're wiring money out, you don't want to ever respond to an email or— and I get into that in a whole separate video about how scammers Yes. Get in, but, you know, they figure out a way, they figure out that a transaction is about to take place, and then they pretend that they're the realtor, or they pretend that they're the title company.

Oh, okay.

They alter the email to make it look like you're getting something from Talon Title.

Okay.

And then they say, you know, wire money here. And yeah, I actually had a, actually had a buyer, it wasn't my client, but I was representing the seller. And the buyer fell for that and lost, lost several thousand dollars. I bet. They were able to claw back some of it.

Yeah.

But anyway, but getting money dropped into your account, you're safe.

Good, good.

Okay. Looking back, what are some of the biggest challenges you faced getting your home ready to list?

Getting it ready to— probably all the little maintenance jobs that you want to have taken care of just to make it looking its best and to get the most money. So You know, fixing patches in the walls, different things like that. All the little jobs to get it done.

Yeah. And I think also trying to determine what's the most important.

Yes. Right. And the time that you have to do it. Yeah.

Yeah. Because right, I remember the first thing, your husband Chris, who's by the way, not able to attend today. So he's not on this video. He is in the part 1 video.

Yeah.

But I remember Chris mentioning to me right away, the back door. Yes. Right. And, you— he was not able to get to that, and then that was what was really called out in the inspection. Yes, yes, the rest of it we lost the money on. Yeah, which was, um, which was what we, uh, they asked— they originally asked for $1,000.

Yes, to fix the— it was wood rot on the back door.

Yeah, yeah, and I— they asked for $1,000 off. We came back and negotiated it down to $500 off the originally agreed-upon price.

Yeah.

And which, by the way, two-thirds, so 66% of all transactions in realtor— this is a national statistic— do not end up closing in with the same terms that were originally agreed upon.

Okay.

So you're not, you know, you're not a bad company. I mean, most— 66% of transactions, something changes as a result of either an appraisal, if it doesn't appraise at the— yours appraised fine. But they called out this issue with the door jamb on the back and so asked for a discount.

And yeah, I mean, which we knew was a problem, so we were willing to, you know, yeah.

And it was an interesting exchange that I had with the buyer's agent. And I said, hey, you know, $1,000 seems to be a bit of a steep ask. What do you think about meeting us halfway? And she said, actually, my client looked at what, you know, she just had a door replaced on the house that she's selling and it cost her about $500.

Oh, okay.

So seeing seems reasonable. Yeah, it was an easy— good, you know, not up— not every back and forth on stuff goes that way, but yeah, this one was pretty— I mean, and she was obviously excited about your home.

Yeah, yeah, good, good.

Um, how did you juggle preparing your home on Traditions to sell while you were moving into your new home and doing these renovations?

Yeah, so it was a lot of— definitely with my two toddlers, just picking up as you go, trying to keep it as clean as possible so you could have it ready for a showing. I don't know what I would do without my parents' help. They watched them a lot during the cleaning process, the moving process, the renovation process. We're lucky to have family in town to help with all of that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, and you ran into, we ran into some challenges. Yeah. With, it's not, so you, it started with on the new home on Beverly. And this happened after our interview. This was discovered after part one interview.

Yes, yeah.

We discovered that the roof of the garage, which is attached to the main home, that seam or that connection where the roof meets that wall. Chris, originally you guys wanted to replace the flooring in—

Yes.

On that first upper floor. And in tearing that up, he found some water, which led to a discovery that tracking it down, how they put the roof, how they attached the roof to the home was not done properly when it was originally done. And therefore there was this long longtime seepage of water in there causing some rot.

Yeah.

And we had, we had a quote done by ServPro, which was, you know, um, about $7,000. And then Chris wanted another opinion. I was able to twist my son's arm.

Yes, thank you.

To come look at it. Yeah, it was a licensed builder. He came and looked at it and gave Chris some advice, was not able to do the work, but right gave credit, and then Chris has done it on his own.

Yes, he has. Yeah.

All right.

He's really taken it upon himself to learn how to renovate a house.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so how far along— I mean, is it, is it ready to move into, or are you going to have to move into like the basement part first?

We moved into the upper floor, so the upper floor is livable. There's still like some cosmetic stuff.

Okay.

The bottom level is a complete construction zone, but that's okay.

Okay. Well, that's probably the best way to—

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So yeah, he That was no small task. I mean, he had about, what, a month? A little over a month too.

Yeah, well, so I think we had about 2 months, but from the time of the offer to closing to where we knew we were gonna have to move was a little over 2 weeks, I think. So it was really crunch time these last few weeks to get it livable, for sure.

Yeah, while he's got a full-time job.

Yes.

Yeah, more power to him.

Yeah, I'm very impressed.

So other than that, were there any other unexpected hurdles or surprises? In the process?

Um, not that I can recall.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. All right, selling process, because the first part one kind of covered the buying process of the new home that you're moving into. Let's talk about the selling process of your house on Traditions. How did you feel when your home first went on the market? Excited? Nervous? What is it?

Yeah, I was excited. I think I had unrealistic expectations. Maybe, maybe the time of year that we listed, because we had an open house right away, and I was sure we were you're gonna have all these people and get an offer that weekend, and that was not the case at all.

Yeah, but it was right before Christmas, and that was a learning, you know, thing. I had never done an open house during the holiday season.

I think it was literally like the weekend before Christmas.

Yeah, before Christmas. Yeah, yeah. Which, you know, still, you with stuff like that, you never know.

Yeah, yeah.

We did have one visitor. Yes, to the open house.

But I think it happened for a reason because we obviously weren't ready to move into that.

Yeah, so it ended up working out just Yep. And we started at a higher price than we ultimately—

so yeah, because we had a price in mind and I was like, let's try a little higher just to see how it goes.

Yeah.

And it didn't go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I— correct me if I'm wrong, but in a lot of— by the way, you're not alone. A lot of buyers feel that way.

Yeah.

Which I appreciate. But there's, there's that pricing strategy and a lot goes into that. I've shot a whole separate video about going into great depth about developing a pricing strategy. It's not just about what a comparative market analysis puts in place. It also is the personal circumstance. So the fact that you really needed some time anyway, yeah, wasn't necessarily as big a deal to start higher.

Exactly.

Than we otherwise would have.

Yes.

Because having it sit a little longer was not a bad thing because you needed that time.

Yes.

But, but we— my recommended price, I believe, was $275,000.

Yes.

We started at $290,000.

Yes.

And went through— it was on the market for, I think, close to just under 2 months.

Yeah, yeah, something like that.

Yeah, yeah. And then we— then when we reduced the price to $275,000, and this just so happens it's going to sound like an I told you so, and it's not intended to be that way, but, uh, but it kind of—

totally get it.

Um, so as soon as we dropped it to $275,000 A lot more action.

Yes.

And, and ultimately an offer which led us to that, to this closing that you just conducted.

So yeah, I think within that first couple days or first week we accepted that offer of dropping the price. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

At any point did you worry about the sale not going through, about us not getting, uh, once we had the offer? No, just in general. At any point did you start to worry like, will I sell this house?

No, I knew we would sell it, just maybe not for the price I was hoping for. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. What, what was the hardest part about saying goodbye to your old home at 821 Traditions?

Yeah. Just all the memories. I think, you know, that's where we were when we got married and had our kids. So all of our memories, all of our first memories are there. And our neighbors are great. Every time they drive by and we were moving, everybody was saying goodbye and It is a great little— yeah, yeah, yeah.

So now that everything's kind of done and wrapped up, do you feel like you made the right decision at the right time?

I do. There was definitely some days where I had buyer's remorse during the stress, but now that we're in the house and everything's done, I do feel like it was the right decision for sure.

Yeah, buyer's remorse, probably related to how much work Chris was doing.

Yeah, I, you know, I— it wasn't our intention to buy a fixer-upper, and it's not a fixer-upper necessarily. I thought we were just going to paint the walls and put in floors, but once you get in there, you keep adding projects and adding projects, and yeah, it just turns into a lot more work than you anticipated.

Yeah, that's one thing. Like, right now, my mother-in-law, my son's grandmother, wants him to replace siding on her house, and he's like, it's not just gonna be siding, right? You know, once I start pulling that string, you know, I'm gonna find— I know I'm gonna find other things. I don't know that she's prepared for that. And that's always the case.

Yes.

You know, my— the, the builder that my son has worked for, for now 10 years as a finished carpenter, and they, they were so busy for so long that they would not do any remodels.

Oh, okay.

Because of that.

Yeah, because it turns into a bigger—

well, it turns into a bigger project, and the homeowner has a hard time understanding how— like, hey, all I asked you to do was this, right? And it's like, well, But if I do that, I'm covering up a problem.

Exactly. Yeah.

Which is what Chris tearing up the floor, he, he uncovered the problem, right? That you don't want to just then cover up again.

Exactly.

Fix it.

Yes.

So yeah. What would you say to someone who is feeling overwhelmed at trying to buy a home and sell a home at the same time?

I think timing and patience is key. Waiting for the right house to come along, saving during that time for all the necessary things you're gonna have to do when it comes to moving time.

And unexpected things.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Not everybody has the time, but I think that was our, our biggest factor. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, if you could go back and do anything differently in the selling process, what would it be?

I, I don't know if this would have changed our the offer at all, but I maybe would have tried to extend the closing date a little bit. Or I know there's the option to pay rent after closing type of thing.

You would like to have more time. Yeah, more time to pack up, move. All—

yeah, because I think— I guess I thought once we got the offer, we'd have a good month before closing, but our offer happened to want to close in like 2 weeks.

Yeah, and the reason for that was that, yeah, they had sold their home they were closing, and otherwise she would have had to find a place to live for a couple—

Exactly. Yeah, so she may have, you know, retracted her offer at that point anyways, but—

Right.

I would have maybe tried bargaining for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I, by the way, I did ask the question.

Oh, did you?

And the, the response that I got was kind of like, uh, because she has nowhere to go. Right, exactly, exactly. And it would have cost her an inordinate amount Yeah, now that both transactions are behind you, you have successfully bought and sold. Yes, in the city of Traverse City, you were upsizing. Yeah, you know, a lot of, uh, a lot of people nearing retirement, they're in the opposite, which is what, um, they were downsizing, which is what your buyer was doing, by the way, downsizing. Yes, uh, you were upsizing because a thousand, even though it was 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, it was still only about a little over 1,000 square feet with no basement.

And no garage.

And no garage. Uh, yeah, and Chris needed the garage for his eBay side business.

Yes.

And you needed— probably needed a basement for the kids to run around.

Yeah.

Yeah. Now that all that's— you've successfully completed the journey, how do you feel about it?

I'm excited. I'm ready to move forward and make new memories. You know, even though it's a stressful time, it's all worth it in the end, I think, for sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you got a much bigger yard.

Yes, we're very excited about the yard.

Yeah, and a great neighborhood next to Silver Lake Elementary. Yeah, so in all likelihood, if the girls go to Silver Lake, you're going to have a lot of— and I— and we spent enough time in that neighborhood to realize a lot of kids in that neighborhood too. So that's pretty cool.

Yeah.

Um, would you recommend this process, you know, a lot of people can't do it. You guys were very frugal and had the financial wherewithal to buy first and sell later.

Yes.

A lot of times people need to sell first in order to free up the capital, right? But if people are able to do it financially, would you recommend handling it in the same way?

I think so, because I think that's what helped us get the price we got on the house we're moving into, because it wasn't contingent on the sale of our house, so they were willing to drop the price a little bit for us. And I knew just because of our house and where it was that it would sell. We might have to make 2 house payments for a few months, but I knew that we wouldn't be— I just felt like we weren't going to be stuck with 2 house payments for very long.

Yeah.

So yeah, I would definitely do it that way again, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, what, uh, last question, and this is a part of, you know, I used to be— when I was with Traverse City Area Public Schools I was a principal and then associate superintendent, and my boss at that time, one of my several bosses, but my last boss who actually promoted me from principal to that associate superintendent position, was big into lean continuous improvement. So one of the practices that they do is do like a plus-minus. Actually, go to this whiteboard here.

Oh, sure. Oh, okay.

So it's just one of these?

Um, I would say communication was great. That was a plus, just being kept in the loop about any update that might come about.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, because I think that's part of the stress in all of this is not knowing, or, you know, just wondering like, yep, how the showing went, or, you know, what's happening. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

And so we did use— we, we use as much as we can ShowingTime, the program, to send you And then, you know, that's sometimes a difficult thing for us because sometimes we don't get feedback.

Right, exactly.

They don't fill it out, or yeah, yeah, they don't either don't fill it out. Or actually, there's a strange lawsuit right now over feedback where the buyer's agent provided the seller with feedback that ended up offending the seller. Oh, and then the seller admitted after closing when they were kind of— they met the buyer. Yeah. Hey, yeah, we were a lot harder on you in the negotiations because of that original negative feedback. And then the buyer went back to their agent and said, we didn't authorize you to share that feedback.

Right. Oh, so the buyer is the—

yeah, the buyer. The buyer in that case, their first impression was very negative.

Yeah.

Then they came back, their interest swung around, they came back to it, engaged in it. Well, the seller remembered this initial negative feedback shared by the buyer's agent.

Yeah.

And the buyers said to their agent, after learning from the seller, we were tougher on you and we squeezed you for an extra $20 grand. Yeah, because your negative comments, the buyers were like, hey, buyer's agent, I didn't give you permission to share our information, you know?

Right. So that's $20 grand because of that.

So I've actually stopped just offering up feedback because I don't want to put my buyer, you know, right? Like, or I at least make sure they're comfortable with me sharing. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, okay, communication was was a positive, which I appreciate that. Yeah, I do try to make an effort.

Yeah, you know, definitely all the extra services that you offer, all the help, all the, you know, you, you know everybody, you know somebody to call even if you don't know.

Yeah, yeah, extra services and connect, you know. Yeah, that also, so yeah, that included like consultation, uh, with a licensed builder, which happened to be my son.

Yes.

And then that also, you know, the services that Randy provides, which was the enclosed trailer.

Yeah. Snow plowing.

Oh yeah, that's right. I plowed you out a couple times. I plowed out to make sure that the sellers didn't have an excuse to get out quickly, right? Get their rest of their stuff out. And then, and then again, because snow kept coming.

Yes, yes.

Uh, yeah, plowing. And I actually was trying to catch some B-roll with my drone. Yeah, it ran into that tree. I don't know if I ever told you.

Oh no, no, you didn't tell me.

It hit a tree and dove down and I was in a panic because it fell. The snow covered it. It was enough fluff that I couldn't find it.

Oh no.

And I was like, this thing's pretty expensive, you know.

So did those not have trackers on them?

Well, that's what I, you know, I needed to do the research in real time as I'm kind of— my anxiety is going up.

I gotta find this thing. Yeah.

Um, I had never had that happen before. Yeah. But yeah, other services also, Randy, remember to— once you get your assessment.

Yes, I'm going to do that today. I'm going to drop that off today.

Okay, that's what you're heading over there. Yeah, give him your property tax assessment, and then that's a service that he provides. He will take it to the tax tribunal as far as that.

If it's—

so that's a great service, tax assessment review.

Pictures, family pictures.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, Shannon did the family pictures.

Yeah, so you can have memories from the house you're moving out of.

Yeah. Yeah, and by the way, keep that in mind for once you get the home, your new home. Yeah, where you want it. Um, that's another thing that's out there that, okay, I, I provide. Okay, I mean Shannon provides it, right? But something we do, she'll come out and do family pictures in your new home and in the yard. And so you'll have two sets, the one that you left and the one that you came to. So, you know, I, I really racked my brain on what we could have done differently to avoid the discovery of this problem.

Oh, and I don't think that— I don't know that we could have.

Yeah, yeah, it is. Talking about the water damage, the water damage, yeah, that was discovered by the, by the joint of the garage roof to the home because the inspector missed it, right? And then the inspector can't be expected to find every little thing. And so anyway, you know, I've been really racking my brain about there was a lot of stuff stacked in front of where it may have been discovered in the garage.

In the garage, yeah, yeah.

Um, and so that led Chris and I to kind of talk a little bit about, well, you know, was that—

should it have been disclosed?

What was that purposeful to hide it? Should it have been disclosed? Uh, we did explore that a little bit with the listing realtor because I, I think they, they knew about it. I do.

Yeah.

And they did not disclose it, but that's hard to prove.

Exactly.

I had another situation with a condo that in, or a townhouse in Sugarloaf, where it was discovered after the fact that the roof was leaking. And my new buyer who had moved in found out from the community that a roofer had been on in the last year. And it was not on this. So now she had good proof that the seller knew. And then they went to, they solved it. They didn't have to go to court or whatever. The seller ended up stepping up and doing the right thing.

And, you know, maybe if we— if Chris hadn't decided to do it himself and it was an extravagant amount of money, maybe we would have gone farther. Yeah, but it just wasn't worth it, you know?

Right.

We just—

and you still, in the end, got a pretty solid deal.

Yeah.

Which we covered in the first video. But, but the only thing I thought about is going forward as a place for me to possibly improve learning from this experience. Would be, you know, to be suspicious of stacked stuff. Yeah, piles.

Because we didn't know. So, you know, in the, in the inspection report, you know, it clearly states the inspectors aren't allowed to move things. And yeah, you know, there's only so much that they can do. The water tested dry because it was— it had a vapor barrier on it or whatever, so it wasn't going to read as moisture because they—

yep, yep, there was a vapor barrier between where the rot was.

Yes.

And the living room where, where the, where it was discovered. But the other thing that I thought of is because, because when Chris pulled up the carpeting, he did find moisture.

Right.

That's true.

Yes.

And what, what I thought about because of that was when, when we looked at the home, they had the heat turned way down.

Okay.

And, and then in anticipation of Chris doing the work that he was planning on doing, peeling up the carpeting and replacing the floor.

Yeah.

Heat was run at normal room temperature for at least a day or two prior to him starting the work.

Yes.

So that's one thing also that I thought about is pre-inspection, basically turn up the heat.

Yeah, because they had been out of the house for months, so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which, which is gonna— if you, if you bring the house up to its normal temperature, yeah, then perhaps, I mean, we don't know, right? But perhaps that would have revealed that, that temperature differential, which is important when you're using a thermal camera. That's what you're looking for. Okay, is that temperature differential. And if you remember, I used it, I used mine in the basement and showed you where we surmised there was an old chimney or something, or there was an old fireplace because it was a perfect square of coldness on the other side.

Yes.

And maybe, you know, because I use that throughout the house. I'm not an inspector, but I like to do that prior to an inspection so that I can advise the inspector, look more closely here, right? And I did not see it in the living room. Yeah, but perhaps if there had been more heat in the home, I would have seen that temperature differential. So those are the two things that I came away with that I could have done better, and, you know, we'll look for in the future and future deals. But yes, hindsight's always 20/20.

Exactly. Yeah.

All right, any final words, Leah? The— yeah, The process is almost— you've still got a lot of work ahead of you, but, uh, but only on one house instead of two now. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's gotten down into, you know, it's like, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Yeah, so the next bite is to head home and start unpacking.

That's right. Yep, get it ready.

Yeah, yeah. All right, any— anything else?

Just a huge thank you to you for all your support.

Yeah, well, thank you, and, uh, thanks for thinking of me in the process. And yeah, I think it's a good team with Randy and his stuff that he provides as well.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, awesome. Well, thanks so much.

Thank you.