As you know, I partnered with Owners.com this year to help us navigate the road to selling our home. Owners.com has been with us every step of the way and it’s been wonderful to have resources to turn to when questions have come up for us. House selling is new territory for us, this is our first time selling a home and we want to make sure we do it smart and we do it right. What I love about Owners.com is that it allows us to pay just a small flat fee to get on the MLS and not pay a listing agent commission, which is about 3%. I personally love (and appreciate) that with Owners.com I’m in control of much of the process, which is definitely key and important to us.

Over the last 9 months we’ve put a ton of blood, sweat and tears into house as we’ve been prepping to get it ready for sale. We knew going in that it wasn’t going to be easy. As much as I wish we could’ve just popped on a band-aid and hoped for the best, it just wasn’t the case. We had a laundry list of things to do that we absolutely wanted to make sure we got through before we even contemplated putting it out into the world for a new family to purchase.

As we’ve started to see our house turn into the house that we’re proud to put on the market, it’s become bittersweet for us. We know it’s time to move on and into a new home and create new memories for our family, but it’s also sad at the same time. We’ve seen this house come alive over the last 9 months. All the “someday we will do this” turned into reality and the outcome is just truly, truly incredible for us.

We’ve painted all the interior rooms.
We’ve painted the exterior, which COMPLETELY changed the look of the house.
We’ve replaced the garage door (which needed to be done 10 years ago!).
We’ve replaced the downstairs bathroom.
We’ve replaced the kitchen floor.
We’ve replaced the mudroom floor.
We’ve re-built our outdoor deck.

Oh, yes. Our house now is something we’re just so unbelievably proud of and just feel thrilled with the progress. We have a few more things to do, but these things will easily get done over the next few months.

We’re now at the point where we need to start thinking about determining the right sales price for our house. Quite frankly, off hand, I have no idea what the exact value of my home would be for sale. The good thing is, there are a variety of different ways to help determine the correct and fair selling price of your house. I’m worried about pricing too high and boxing people right out. And – of course – I’m worried about pricing too low and not making enough money off the sale. For us, there are 3 different ways we plan to research prices to find that sweet spot for our house.

1. Checking out other properties that have sold in our area. My husband has been a real estate ninja on and offline lately, he knows every house that is for sale and the price. Right now it’s a hotbed in our area in terms of people selling and buying (which is good for us!). We live in a home that was built in 1968, along with many homes in our neighborhood. We have the same floor plan and roughly the same amount of land. By analyzing the selling prices of these homes, we will definitely have a strong sense of how much to list for.

2. Get your house appraised. We did this about 6 years ago when we re-financed, but it’s also something we could do again to get a true gauge of where we should be – price wise.

3. Visit those Open Houses! This is what my parents did when they were trying to sell their home years ago and it really helped them out a ton. By visiting homes in the area that are currently for sale, you’re able to see prices and compare properties. We know that visiting open houses is beneficial too because many people in our area have renovated, so it’s good to see what has been done in other properties around us.

My husband seems to think that we could list our house in the low 400’s and hopefully be OK. I’m determined to make sure our house is picture perfect to place on the market for sale. I want to make sure someone falls in love with our house like we did with it 11 years ago. Pricing is the first hurdle into actually getting it up for sale, so it’s getting very REAL for us!

Thank you to Owners.com for helping us get to this point, it’s all so very exciting!

Disclosure: This is a sponsored partnership with Owners.com. All opinions are 100% my own.