Things are rolling!

After a long day of working, and recovering from being under the weather I'm happy to announce the place is now listed on house.info. I noticed that there weren't many page views to the Zillow listing and decided to take some more pictures and update the Zillow listing.

With 25 views, things are far from picking up but once the ad goes up on Craiglist and the video goes up on Youtube - I think it's going to pick up. From the research I did on the homesdatabase (Maryland MLS for regular people) - our condo is one of the only one's on the market. The rest are in areas that aren't that good and are much smaller. I haven't seen any of "the competition" but from the rental units around the area I challenge someone to take a look and come here and decide.

House.info listing: http://suitland.md.house.info/45527-condo-sale

We've officially be zillowed

After doing research online, there aren't that many places to list a place for sale that don't cost an arm and a less. The FSBO (for sale by owner) sites look good but I don't have a strong feeling that many people visit them. Instead I decided to put a listing on Zillow.com. It gives you a lot of good information as an owner and the ability to add a lot of good information about your place. Since everything isn't completely done I don't know if I'll be adding pictures right away but it's great to be able to find a site that gets so much traffic and be there.

Craiglist is cool and I plan on putting a listing on there too, but there almost seem to be too many listings in their housing section and I wonder how anyone is able to find the home of their dreams on a site like that.

I'm really proud of the work my wife and I have been doing as we get the place ready for it's new "owner."

Our zillow listing: http://www.zillow.com/HomeDetails.htm?zprop=2146928128

Fears linked to foreclosures?

I've been trying my best to read anything and everything going on in the real estate market so I can anticipate any surprises. What caught me off guard was an article in the NY Times about the jump in foreclosures. My heart really goes out to anyone losing their home out there.

I'm a big advocate of people not renting in favor of owning but there is a line of comfort that shouldn't be crossed. People often look at how closely the prices of homes are tied to rent for similar situations. So if a house is being rented for $2000/month then you'd think the mortgage is $300-325,000. When things go crazy and the same place being rented for $2000 is being sold for $425,000 - it's time to sit back and let things play out.

Some "before pictures"

I was able to dig up a few before pictures. You can see that when we got here the walls were bare and the kitchen was pretty dated. You can't see the 20 year old light fixture that was dangling in the kitchen, but you can see the laminate cabinets and the plain jane counter. I was most excited to see the backsplash go because it didn't go with anything. The walls were beige, the appliances were black and white, the counter looked like it used to be white and you have these blue and tan tiles on the wall.

A fun day Sunday

With two weeks left, today was all about making sure everything was starting to come together. In the past month I've been to Home Depot and Lowes more than I'd like to admit. Thankfully, both are less than 15 minutes away since each is great at different things. Lowes usually has a wider selection, but if you want cheap Home Depot usually has something quick, dirty, and probably on clearance. I think I realized it was getting bad when the cashiers started to know me by face. I wanted to start sharing some first looks of the place. There are still a lot of touch ups that need to be made but this will give you an idea of the layout. I'll have to look and see if I can dig up any old pictures so you can see the before and after, but it's come a long way.

Welcome to the blog!

Hi Everyone,

I believe strongly in the internet, so when my wife and I decided to sell our condo I knew that I'd turn to the internet to help. After doing some reading on selling our place on our own I decided that I'd do all the marketing online.

Now some background info: the condo is on the top floor our building. The condo is located in Suitland, MD in a complex called Marlow Towers. The location is good and will only get better. There's a Metro station around the corner. You can get there in 15 minutes by walking or 3-4 minutes driving. On the same street as the Metro station is a Smithsonian museum, the Census Bureau, and what will become Suitland Manor, a multi-million dollar redevelopment.

We gave ourselves until October 1st to get the place ready for the public and it seemed appropriate to write what's going on so people understand that we really care about not just getting rid of our home but having someone enjoy it just as much as we did. We've decided to relocate and before we move, we wanted to make sure we were starting fresh. Given the prices of rent for a 2BR apartment - we think someone would be better off owning and our place would make a great place for them to live.

I'll use future posts to get more into what we've done and how you can come take a look at it for yourself. In the meantime, picture being able to own for the same as renting, being 15 minutes away from DC, Norther Virginia, the upcoming National Harbor and an airport (Reagon National Airport)

Feel free to leave any questions in the comments.