Where were we? Oh yes, how’d we do after the staging?
Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? When we last left our emasculated male mover, he was bracing for the onslaught of people who couldn’t wait to see this rhinestone in the roughage, so to speak.
Here’s the process for those of you still caught up in an immoveable state. You sterilize your home and then you wait. Wait for someone who wants to walk barefoot through your Shangri-la;. He/she’s first steps are to their agent who, in turn, completes the journey with a call to our agent waiting on the horizon. Or someone steps right up to the front door sans agent (more about egregious commissions later). Lost yet?
And lo and behold, it happens; somebody wants to cross the moat to your castle. ‘Bravo, done,’ you enthuse. ‘Not so fast,’ I defuse. Let’s assume it’s 9:00 a.m. (That’s IX on your staged clock.) You’ve had your caffeine hit and have thrown on some questionable attire (Do the socks match the pants or the shoes? How ‘bout don’t wear socks?) When the call comes through, it could be for a 10:00 showing that morning. Yes, you have to re-sterilize your home and move out within the hour.
‘Not possible you say,’ quivering at the thought. ‘Correct,’ we respond equally quivered. So how do you do it?. Follow the bouncing ball dear viewer:
- Start with the house in pristine condition
- Wherever you go, you do not leave a trail; you don’t cover your tracks, you pick them up. For example, you’re watching TV, and you’re tired of Judge Judy dispensing wisdom, you start to drag yourself away but first you:
- Pick up your wine glass; the wine bottle; the screw cap; the pliers, the serviette with the mature joke and the well named Crumble Crackers.
- Dab at the wine stain using the now really off-colour serviette.
- Retrieve your socks
- Close the window; on second thought, leave it open, you took off your socks
- Put the chair, the ottoman and the 3 remotes back to where they were when you entered the room. Correction: hide the remotes in the drawer.
- Fire up the vacuum cleaner.
- Repeat wherever you go
It’s now around 9:15 and you’re ready to leave the house (you have to, by the way, home owners are persona non grata; they could screw the sale), ‘The fridge needs ice.’
But before you leave the house:
- Turn on all the lights. This really hurts; it’s the sunniest day of the year and there are no curtains, remember? This convoluted idea had to be hatched by a real estate agent who also sells electricity part time on commission. In our case, turning on the lights makes the basement the brightest room in the house.
- As you back down the drive you realize you hadn’t planned on where to go to kill time.
- We head for Giuseppe’s Discount Furniture Emporium and Swim up Grappa Bar.
- Turn on your cell phone! OK, but why the urgency? Cause when you’re later at Starbucks spending $ 22.26 for two coffees and 2 wraps (as an aside, a student is sprawled beside you consuming no coffees and no wraps but a lot of internet.) somebody else could want to see your place at 10:30 and then you couldn’t go home.
- $112.57 later (the cost of killing time consuming food and the house consuming all that electricity from leaving the lights on – even the piano light gets to shine!) you head home at 4:30 and plan a dinner that can be made and consumed and cleaned up in 13 minutes cause (wait for it) somebody could want to drop by.
- Of course, while this is going on, you can’t really use your place; you’ve hidden all the things you use every day so drinking out of the bottle and eating out of the box is now proper etiquette.
So how’d we do after all this? (drumroll)
Somebody wants to make an offer! ‘Yes!’ you shout, ‘but I thought we’d agreed to wait till Tuesday to review all the offers?’ (‘All’ is the operative word.)
This is a shut out game; a push, if you will. ‘We’ll buy your house, a touch over asking, no conditions, your closing date but we want to push you to accept it right now and not wait for all those overly generous offers coming on Tuesday. Whatta you say?’
‘Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh …’
The throb of bouncing the pros and cons back and forth numbs the brain. All the negotiating skills you learned in cubs abandon you, ‘I’ll give you a frog for your silver yo-yo.’
Do you consider this offer or wait till Tuesday? If Tuesday is a bust, can you go back and beg? For less? You decide to play the pushing game back; you ask for some more. They nudge back; give a bit, but less than some more.
You start to sweat; it’s fall, you never sweat in the fall. You stand shakily on shaky ground. You forcefully ask for what you want, ‘How ‘bout a little more?’
The phone rings.
They agree. The dog has caught the car; we’re moving.