The Continuing Adventures of Two Middle Aged Kids

A Moving Experience

I know blogs are supposed to be contemporaneous, but really the last month or so we haven't time to think, never mind to write. Since November 07, we've:

• Driven from New Hampshire to Florida, spent a month there,
• Continued out to Arizona for another month, found bought a house there
• Drove back to New Hampshire. Prepared our condo for sale in a lousy market
• Sold it in ONE DAY
• Closed on it and moved in ONE WEEK (the Real Estate agent had never pulled this off in less than a month before)
  

Some of the interesting bits along the way: the "staging" -- Kathy did a brilliant job (with a huge effort from her brother, and also our friends Donna & Linda) of revamping and marketing the condo to compensate for the various competition, making it more than attractive but compelling.

The place was bought by, strangely enough, the son of a neighbor. Twenty-one, successful and looking for a home, it just "clicked" for him. He'd looked at at least one other unit in our complex, but Kathy's staging won the day.

So we're off: it's Sunday, May 11th, 2008, we're in Cumberland, MD on a 5 day drive to our new permanent home in Oro Valley, AZ (email az@blessley.net and it'll send you the details). My car (the BMW) is on a car-carrier somewhere between NH and AZ, as are our possessions (we made the new owner a great offer on the furniture). We should rendezvous with them toward this weekend.

Labels: moving, stress

posted by Scott & Kathy @ 4:42 PM 0 Comments

Selling our NH Condo. Stress. Angst. Gnashing of teeth.

You know, "they" have these lists of things that stress one out. Marriage. Divorce. Death of a loved one. Big change in income (either loss or gain). Moving. Fixing up a house, selling it in a crappy market, moving away from the region you've called home for about 50 1/2 out of 51 years? "Priceless" to mix metaphors.

To bring you up to date (on the off chance you actually have other things to do then read our blog entries...): we bought a home, furnished, in Arizona after spending a month or so in the area. Actually we bought it less than a week after we started looking, paid for it, moved into it, then headed back east to the next adventure: selling our New Hampshire condo. That's where we're at (physically & chronologically) at the moment.

We bought the NH place about 5 years ago. Intended as an interim step on the road to a "permanent" retirement place, we didn't invest much time, money or energy into making it spiffy. Until now. In the course of about 2 weeks, with huge help from Kathy's brother John and some "Clutter Management Maven" neighbors (Donna & Linda, aka "People with Taste"), we have transformed this home. If it were just in a warmer climate and a little more exciting town...

posted by Scott & Kathy @ 2:08 PM 0 Comments