Of course, the selling part is the easy part. Before that comes 9 months of selling crap you don’t need/want/can’t take with you. Fixing stuff is also involved. Repairing fascia, painting trim, painting every room in the house because the realtor says you need “neutral colors”.
Tearing out and replacing the kitchen counter tops and back splash is also in order. Did I mention resurfacing the pool?
The most fun was laying laminate flooring in all the bedrooms.
I won’t lie, the downsizing is a major headache. You never realize just how much stuff you have in 2400 square feet until you start trying to get rid of it. We held 3 garage sales, listing multiple items on eBay, LetGo, and OfferUp, took about 10 trips to Salvation Army or Goodwill and finally filled dozens of bags of stuff that just needed to be thrown away.
Laura, I think, enjoyed the process. I being more genetically a pack rat did not. I hate getting rid of something I might need some day. However, keeping the goal of living in 300-400 square feet of space helped keep me motivated. In the end, it’s only stuff, and living the full-time RV lifestyle is not about stuff, it’s about experiencing new places and people.
We started the process in about December of 2017 with the intention of placing our house on the market in May or June of 2018. A lot of repairs and upgrades just took longer than we expected.
We listed August 21st. We got our first offer August 22nd. After a couple of weeks of inspections, a few mitigations and realtor negotiations, we closed at the end of September. It all comes to a quick end when the realtor hands you a check for the balance. Just like that, you no longer own a house. Yay!
Our constant effort at downsizing paid off. Everything we now owned fit in about 2/3 of a local moving van. With the help of the 2 guys contracted, we moved out of the house and into our temporary home (a condo rented for 7 months). Now we could continue our search for the perfect coach.