My Corvallis Oregon Move–7 Things that Worked for Me

By Dava • May 19th, 2010

My Own Recent Corvallis, Oregon Move

I recently sold my home of 11 years in Corvallis, Oregon and moved to a rural subdivision just outside Corvallis (technically in Benton County, but still with a Corvallis zip code).  The “new” home on a very big lot (nearly 3/4ths of an acre), similar in vintage to the “old” house, a little larger,  a little “newer” (1963 vs 1959) and it has a shop.

I’m pretty experienced at “moving”.  We moved around a lot when I was a kid (something like 14 or so different times before high school) and there are a lot of moving stories associated with all those moves. All-in-all, I have to say the process went very well this time.  Of course, I think I had the best real estate agent around…  Even so, we had our ups and downs.  There is rarely a home sale process that occurs without some “challenges”.

We needed to sell the home we lived in, so that we could move the money and buy the home we wanted. A fairly normal scenario, but it can be a tricky process.  The one thing I can say that worked in our favor was that I do know how to do this. I even listened to my own advice.

Here are the 7 things that worked for me.

  1. Prepare the house to be sold for market (commonly called “staging” but oh, so much more than “decorating”  
    1. Finish projects—the ugly old half bath finally got a face lift
    2. Fix what needs fixing—refinished some wood flooring, put back closet doors, installed new appliances, replace glass in windows with seals that were compromised, fine tune to the nth degree
    3. Eliminate anything that’s excess—pack away items that are specific to us, clear out closets, haul away excess (how in the world did we accumulate so much stuff?) and stash the rest–preferably off site
    4. Touch up paint—this one item has the biggest impact and is the least expensive to do
    5. Touch up the landscaping—weed, mow, bark dust etc.  Haul away that “extra yard stuff”
  2. Do a market analysis—list within the confines of that analysis. This is a crucial step. Going over won’t bring an “offer”.  Listen to feed back from other professionals (even though this is what I do, it’s difficult to be objective–but used my own judgment as well, some thought I could list higher…)
  3. Take many, very good, photos, publish the very good photos in real estate specific web sites that are well trafficked the local MLS (Willamette Valley MLS), ColdwellBanker.com, ValleyBrokers.com,  Realtor.com and nearly every other web site known to the real estate world.
  4. Disclose everything I know. Detailed information. No guessing,  ”just the facts, ma’am”
  5. Negotiate the best offer. Received two offers, focused on the best. In contract within 6 days of publishing to MLS. No worries from the home inspection (because we knew pretty much what we had). Sweated out the appraisal (it was fine—I thought it should be, but these are weird times)
  6. Move! (the seller of the house I purchased gave me early possession—that won’t always work, but there’s almost always a solution).  We hired a local professional mover, because after all, we are not kids anymore.  Get in touch with me if you need his name.
  7. Closed! Signed papers, used a local, lender. Everything there went like clockwork.

Of course there will be some glitches.  Some of the things that happen right after a move are funny, some are not.  We are very happy with the new place.  No, the boxes are not yet unpacked, but the bird feeders are up and we’re looking forward to the next phase.

Related posts: What is Staging and Why Bother?

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