For Sale by Owner / Make Me Move by Zillow | From Ductless Home to Central Air | The Green Notebook

Our "Moving/Not Moving" Story...

As anyone will attest, buying and selling a home is a stressful process full of unexpected twists and turns. If you're a first-time home buyer, there's a learning curve. Even the most savvy of buyers can run into surprises. And ironically, the one thing you need most of is patience and we all know that when buying or selling a home, patience can be scarce.

Just over a month ago, my husband and I decided to put our house on the market. It was a sudden decision with years of thought. We'd known for a long time that we'd eventually want to sell but we very quickly determined that this would be our year. Our month.

Our house is perfect in so many ways. It's not too big, not too small. There are just a few elements that we were lacking and that's where the search for a new home came into play.

Built in the 1980s, our house was constructed without duct work. I'm guessing it was designed that way in an effort to offer an efficient heating system - baseboard with a gas source. And with gas being priced the way it's been over the past decade, we realized a lot of savings. Our heating bills were always very modest despite us keeping the thermostat hovering around 68-71 degrees. Despite the upside, the downside was we had no central air conditioning and no easy way to add it. Before we replaced the windows in our home, we made due with window units. Once our new windows were installed, the framing was too small to house them. We then tried a stand-up unit with a long hose that you aim out of a window. It was loud, never truly got cool and terribly inefficient. Our house offered no other options. In order to add central air, things were going to get complicated.

We priced a number of central air solutions and had many heating and cooling experts to our home to measure, evaluate, take photos and offer estimates. The sticker shock prevented us from pursuing an actual installation, thinking selling our home would make more financial sense than spending anywhere from $14-28,000.

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Very quickly (before summer had a chance to take hold with it's non-stop northeast heatwaves) we decided to put our house on the market. But first, we had an entire bathroom to renovate and a house full of items to be stored. We rented a storage space, started packing up anything that wasn't essential to immediate needs and started tearing up the bathroom - a project we'd been meaning to start for years.

Then the search began. If we were going to sell our home and find our perfect house, we were going to have to finesse the timing. We searched and searched and went to lots of open houses. Despite all the homes we looked at having duct work, none were perfect. All of them had some sort of project(s) that would have to be done and some of those projects were already ones we'd done in our current house. We weren't certain that we wanted to start over, trying to get things just the way we liked. Out of pure frustration, and lack of inventory currently on the market, we decided to try pricing central air one more time. We decided on a great two-zoned system that would allow us to cool the whole house, just the downstairs or just the upstairs. It also came with the installation of duct work. Finally, we would have central air and be doing it right.

We put the sale of our home on hold. We'd become very acquainted with Zillow and how the site could be used to our advantage. If you currently own your home, I highly recommend creating a Zillow account and taking ownership of your home. This way, you can update the details and be sure that what's listed on the site accurately reflects your home - and any updates/additions/features you may have added.

Once we "owned" our home on Zillow (takes simple verification steps), I was able to update the details. We'd added a large deck two years ago, a wooden fence, added the air conditioning and are in the midst of finishing our basement. These are all important features that can add thousands to your home. It's also a great way to obtain a general ballpark figure of what your home is worth, without a costly appraisal or having a realtor offer an on-site estimate.

Zillow also offers a "Sell by Owner" option! You can list your home for sale and have it show up on any area-searches, just as if it had been listed by a real estate company. Additionally, you may receive phone calls from realtors who have buyers interested in your home. If you're in no hurry to sell, this may be the way to go. I'm definitely not claiming that there's not a need for realtors, but if you do a little research, you can confidently sell your home without paying thousands in commissions.

Lastly, Zillow also offers a "Make Me Move" option. What is "Make Me Move", you're wondering? It's a genius method of dipping your toes in the real estate market without being tied down to selling. You list your home with your most ideal sale price in mind. If someone comes along willing to pay that price, wheel and deal! If not, there's nothing saying you have to move. "Make Me Move" is a motivational tool to both sellers and buyers.

Am I in any way affiliated with Zillow? Nope. I'm just someone who's learned a lot through trial and error, not to mention making and breaking our own plans. I'm no expert or professional but I enjoy sharing information that may be helpful to someone else in a similar situation.

Stay inspired,
Erin