Showing posts with label moving house. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving house. Show all posts

October 1, 2023

Selling your home can be pretty stressful

 

Dear Bloggers,

 Yes we are moving again and our house is for sale at the current time. And no we did not find a new place yet although we are having a Plan B to live somewhere in a holiday park for the time in between homes. We did a lot of work to make it our forever home and yes we succeeded pretty much. There are some points that still need attention for example the bathroom needs to be redone to make things more into todays color schemes. That is something for the new owners to do. Our house

 

Our current home is for sale 


Selling a home can be stressful from start to finish. There's so much riding on a home sale that many homeowners spend the time selling their home sitting "on pins and needles," as they say. It's hard not to worry. From the moment that a home is put up for sale, homeowners must ask themselves: what will we do if the home doesn't sell for enough money? What if it takes to long sell? These questions and concerns are valid.

 

Everything outside the house was freshly painted last year by my wife

Fortunately, there are things that you can do to make the home selling process go more smoothly. If you're a homeowner who would like to sell your home sometime in the coming months, you can make the process easier on yourself by working with a professional real estate agent. Below, I've listed the top 10 stressors that homeowners experience when trying to sell their home.


The new staircase was installed


Selling Within the Timeframe

Most homeowners need to sell their home on a deadline. If they can't sell their home by the time their new job begins, or by the time they've started to pay the mortgage on their new property, they could experience hardship that could lead to loss of money. Homes tend to sell quickly at certain times of the year. Putting the house up for sale at a time of year when buyers are looking can help the home sell faster. Homeowners can also help their home sell more quickly by pricing the house right.

 


New powerlines, telephone, gas and also the sewagepipes were renewed

A house that is priced too high for its worth could take a long time to attract the right buyer, and may never attract the right buyer if it remains priced too high. Incorrect pricing can be avoided by working with a real estate professional who understands the real estate market in the area and who knows how to analyze the prices of comparable homes in the area.

 

Selling for the Desired Price

Most home sellers have a target price they're aiming for when they put their house on the market. They often feel anxiety when they wonder what will happen if they don't sell their home for the right price. When an offer comes in below the expected price, this can create feelings of hesitation. Do they accept the offer or not? This is another reason to work with a real estate professional who knows how to analyze the price of comparable homes in the area. 


The rebuilding of the garage after being on fire as the powerlines were not installed according to standards. everything inside was burned. 

A capable real estate professional can help set expectations so homeowners know what to expect when they put their home on the market. Although a real estate professional is not able to predict the future, they can often help homeowners decide what price is realistic, so hopefully the homeowner won't be expecting a price that is much higher than it should be.

 

Handling Home Improvements & Home Selling Preparation

Homeowners often feel a lot of pressure to make their house look "perfect" without really knowing what buyers want. They often put effort into home improvements without knowing whether those improvements will pay off.

 

Homeowners can assuage these concerns by setting up a consultation with their real estate professional before listing their home. Their real estate professional can give them advice that can help them decide what home improvements are most important to do now.

 

The garden has been finished and landscaped this year a costful operation


Fear of Offers Falling Through

Once an offer does come through, it takes a while before the home is officially sold. During that time, the offer can always fall through. Homeowners who are in a hurry to sell their home quickly often feel anxiety that they will not be able to stop the offer from falling apart. A good real estate professional can help with any negotiations that could prevent the home sale from falling apart. An experienced negotiator can help keep buyers interested. Even if their enthusiasm for the home buying process begins to wane.


All the walls have been redone as the former owners only lived here for 40+ Years

Timing the Sale of the Home with the Purchase of a New One

Selling a home and buying a home at the same time can be an especially touchy process. Usually, home sellers want to sell the home shortly before the purchase of their new home is final. Home sellers often feel worry that their home will either sell too soon before the purchase of their new home, or that their home will take a long time to sell after their new home has been bought. Both situations can lead to financial hardship for the homeowner. Homeowners who want to time the sale of their new home purchase properly should work with an experienced real estate professional for both the sale of their old home and the purchase of their new home. Having a partner who can help them at both ends of the transaction can help with the timing.


We had to put in a new kitchen as well as the wooden floor was in that bad condition that you actually could fall through. We now have foam concrete floor with underfloor heating. Best decission i made

Anxiety Over the Unknowns in the Selling Process & Timeline

Lack of control over the selling process and timeline can make some homeowners feel like they're out of control generally, which can lead to overall feelings of anxiety. Homeowners who feel anxiety over the home selling process and timeline should write down a list of questions for their real estate professional at the start of the home selling process to help them feel like they know what to expect throughout the transaction. It's important to find a real estate agent who is a good communicator, who can help the home seller understand what's happening throughout the home selling process. Most home sellers have a greater feeling of control over the selling process if they know what to anticipate every step of the way.


Our diningroom and coffee kitchen counter we had plenty to remodel this to our home.

Being Unsure if Buyers are Interested

Sometimes when a house sits on the market for a long time, home sellers may become concerned that buyers are not interested in their house. This can happen for many reasons. If the house is priced incorrectly, or if the house is not in good condition, then buyers can be hard to bring to the table. Often, sellers find it hard to believe that their home is not attractive to buyers. Sellers expect their house to be attractive to buyers because it is attractive to the sellers. This kind of perspective can make it difficult for sellers to make their home more appealing to buyers. Sometimes, painting a room can be helpful. Other times, the house needs to be repriced. For home sellers, the best way to attract buyers is to work with a real estate professional who can make recommendations for repairs or changes that can bring buyers running.

 

The bathroom stayed in her retro look all the pipes have been checked by a pro, so everything is functional but out of date. 

Handling Negotiations with Buyers

Negotiating with buyers is one of the key parts of selling a home, but many homeowners have little or no experience selling much of anything. This makes negotiating with buyers stressful because most home sellers feel unprepared and unable to handle the negotiations themselves. The best thing that home sellers can do to negotiate with their buyers is to work with a trustworthy real estate professional. It's also important to listen to that real estate professional as they often give advice to sellers. However, it is the seller who is ultimately in control of many of the actions that the real estate professional takes when trying to sell the house. Working together as a team, the real estate professional and home seller can help make the negotiating process better overall.


 

Our backyard and garage we loved to sit outside during the summertime


Difficulty Keeping the Home Clean for Showings

Sometimes, it takes several home showings before a buyer makes an offer on a home. In between those tours and showings, home sellers often spend hours cleaning and staging their house. This can lead to wasted time, stress over keeping the house looking its best, and even fights among people in the household as everyone feels pressure to keep their house looking its best.

For many homeowners, the solution to staging and preparing the house between home showings is to have the house professionally cleaned on a regular basis. Some homeowners will even hire landscapers to cut their grass, water their plants and weed their garden to boost curb appeal. Having professional resources on hand can help reduce the anxiety out of maintaining a home.

 

The Masterbedroom Which is for Dutch standards not to bad.


It's also helpful to work with a real estate professional. A capable and skilled real estate professional can make recommendations that can help homeowners know where to direct their energy when staging their home. This can help homeowners feel some sense of relief that, even if their home is not in perfect condition when home buyers come to see the home, the house is still tailored to the needs and tastes of home buyers. This can help make the experience of preparing for home showings and tours easier overall.

Getting Out of the House for Showings

During tours and open houses, the homeowner leaves their home open for anyone who wants to come in and take a look at their possessions. For some homeowners, doing this can be very challenging. Leaving the home open for anyone to wander in means making the house vulnerable to scrutiny and perhaps even security concerns. This is not easy for some homeowners.

 There are many things that home sellers can do to assuage their own concerns. To begin with, listening to their real estate professional about staging tactics can leave the house seeming less vulnerable overall. Most staging tactics involve putting away personal items that would make the home seem a little less generic and a little more intimate. Not only does this make the house more secure, but it can also lead to bigger offers from home buyers.

In addition, it's also important to work with a real estate professional who will keep a watch over the belongings in the house while the house is being toured by potential buyers. This helps keep the items safe and can even help keep the house itself safe.

 

Our garage and our backyard seen from the sidewalk


Work with a Real Estate Professional

When the time comes to sell your home, the most important thing you can do to make the home selling process easier overall is to work with a real estate professional. Your real estate professional can help you by providing advice and guidance throughout the home selling process, interacting with potential buyers, and by serving as your guide while the house is being sold. 

 

An impression of our groundfloor done by our real estate professionals people


In most of the cases that I know as we have been viewing some new homes for many sellers "...it would make sense to step aside for a little fresh air and let the professionals do their magic."

By working with a real estate professional, you can alleviate much of the anxiety you might feel while the selling process is taking place.

The Old Sailor,

 

 

October 6, 2022

Being a Homeowner is not always easy

 

Dear Bloggers,

 

We have lived in our house for almost five years and my wife wants to move back to the little village on the lake were we once started as homeowners. The lack of houses is making the market going wild and it got overheated. Although homeowners that want to sell have to bring their prices down as the energy market has become impossible for many Dutch families. Something to consider for the coming years. So we need to hold our horses for a while until they realize that we are not going to buy that far over budget.




new and old situation


How to budget for a new home so You don’t end up house poor.

Before buying a home, figure out how much house you can truly afford, including a budget for maintenance and repairs.

I have discovered that I was house poor soon after we bought this house in 2018.

When I put 10% down on the 300 -square-meters property with a  111-square-meters house in the city of Sneek, Friesland in the Netherlands, a district on the outside of Sneek, I was surprised to find out what we had to pay, which initially was €162.000 on mortgage.

Above the new situation as the hedge was a fire hazard and the garden was fully out of shape.

Heating the poorly insulated home was also more expensive than we thought it would be. To make ends meet, the budget had to be extended as 52-year-old  we had to take out a home equity line of credit.

“I quickly found that I was spending at least half of my small €46,000 income at the time on being a homeowner,” I never tried this before. “It turned into the home owning me, as opposed to me owning the home.”

While buying a home can be a sound investment, it can also become a financial burden. Here’s how to think about your housing budget so that doesn’t happen to you.

Bovenkant formulier

Getting ready to buy a home? Hire a financial advisor that does all the math for you and sees into the fact that there might be extra costs on remodeling the house. Constructional things can cost a lot of money.




Total renovated the entrance hall and the staircase has been replaced

Onderkant formulier

What does it mean to be house poor?

Someone who is house poor spends so much of their income on homeownership — such as monthly mortgage payments, property taxes, insurance and maintenance — that there’s very little left in the budget for other important expenses.

Being house poor can limit your ability to build up retirement or other savings, pay off debt, travel or enjoy life. Yes been there, done that and got the T shirt.

“I did not have the money for going out with my friends anymore, going to restaurants, or enjoying time as a 50-something-year-old.” It was an extreme time to survive “I was selling all kinds of stuff on Marktplaats, trying to make the heating bill payment.





A total rebuild of the kitchen required a new electrical system due to induction cooking

In fact, 28% of recent home buyers say making their monthly mortgage payments will be among their biggest money stressors for the next two years.

Budget before you buy

Before shopping for a home, it’s important to figure out how much house you can comfortably afford, which may be a different number from the maximum mortgage you can get approved for.

“A reconstruction calculator is definitely a good starting point for helping to determine your housing budget,” says Gerrit who is a certified financial planner. “However, they also require that you have a strong understanding of your cash flow today — what income is coming in, what expenses are going out and what amount you are saving.”



On the top picture you see the new electric system on the lower picture the old one

One rule of thumb is that you shouldn’t spend more than 28% of your gross monthly income on housing-related costs and 36% on total debts, including your mortgage, credit cards and other loans. This is 64% in total

everyone’s situation is different, and the rule doesn’t take into account the need to leave room in your budget for things like furniture, as well as maintenance and repairs. Plan for upkeep and upgrades

The cost of unexpected home repairs and ongoing maintenance can take you, in particular, by surprise. Even a house that was in very good condition on closing day will inevitably need some big-ticket fixes over the years.

I realized just after moving into this new home that the roof had a leak and the draining system needed some work. So I got a roofer over to fix the problem and this took about €4000 out of my budget for remodeling.



The old living room 

41% of people who have purchased a home in the past 12 months say their biggest money worries in the coming two years will be affording home repairs and maintenance.


The new living room

Saving 1% of the property’s value is a good starting point for maintenance expenses per year.

But, you may need to scale up to 2% of the property’s value based on the age and condition of your home, ours is from 1966, repairs you have already made, and the life expectancy of housing components like the roof or furnace.

Bovenkant formulier

Onderkant formulier

Tips to avoid being house poor

Even if you plan properly for a home, it’s possible to become house poor if a job loss or medical emergency leaves you unable to pay your bills.


Painting the outside of the house

In 2018, when we decided to purchase a home with my wife, I knew we wanted to do things differently. I Thought that we as a couple bought our “dream house” after living so frugally for nine years that we could pay off our debts and save up a 20% down payment. Even so, we took out a smaller mortgage than we could have qualified for. After two years of renovating our house to a home again we ended up in extra costs of about €100.000 We took the electrical wiring down and rewired most of the house. All the draining was renewed and also the water and gas lines. We took the wooden floor out as it was rotten and got a  foam concrete floor with underfloor heating a total new heater with new high efficiency radiator panels upstairs, we placed insulation between the floors and still there is some work left to do in the coming years.


Soon on our house you might see a sign like this

“When you're absolutely sure you want to live somewhere for the long term, buying a home with the proper down payment and an understanding of the true costs of homeownership can be a great experience,” I am having a bit of experience through the years. “I found that with my third round of homeownership.” And we are getting ready to take step four.

 

Someday, sometime and somehow the new adventure will start soon I hope

 

The Old Sailor,

 

June 14, 2018

Moving house and moving town

Dear Bloggers,

My blog has been on pause for a couple of months due to the fact that we have moved to another town in the North of the Netherlands. We finally sold our property and we moved in to a smaller city home which needs more then a bit of work. But our lives became a bit easier for my spouse and we can afford the price of it. The sale went pretty quick and we had only little time to move on and find us a new place to live. So we are still struggling with the refurbishing process.


Let me take you back about 40 years in time. The house I grew up in had a pretty limited square metres, something I notice every time I visited my parents. The living room is very small and the kitchen is pretty tiny as well.Anyway it was tiny but it was very cozy.

I grew up there with my parents and two older sisters and an older brother. There were also periods where kids who were in the middle of divorce troubles at home and they found a loving and caring home at my mother’s place and my dad had a pony stable and they were to us something like “younger brothers or sisters that just lived with us, too. It was cozy at times, to say the least.
Yet, when I look back on it, I don’t have any bad memories of living there. I don’t recall any situation where things were made uncomfortable due to the smallness of the house. There was always somewhere I could go for privacy. There was always enough room to do things together as a family..


The house we lived until last week was much larger, but the story is much the same. I lived here with my wife and we have two children. I don’t have any bad memories of living here, nor is there any situation where things are really uncomfortable. There is always room for privacy. Only problem was that I could not feel at home here as the house was new and had no charisma according to me.

So, why the bigger house? What does this bigger house provide me that the smaller house that I grew up in doesn’t provide for me? Honestly, the biggest benefit of a larger house is that it provides a lot of room for more stuff. This house offers storage attic, a garage with a huge amount of storage, and big rooms with plenty of room for storage-oriented furniture (like bookshelves).
Naturally, when you have storage space, you tend to fill it. We’ve lived in this house since 2003 and, in drips and drabs, we’ve slowly filled up that storage space.
 

Recently, however, I’ve been thinking more and more about the house I grew up in. In some ways, it’s actually not all that different than the house I’d like to retire in, except with perhaps one more nice room to entertain guests in and a slightly larger kitchen. I would even consider moving into the perfect smaller house right now, even with growing children, And I think that we have found the right one.

So, why would I even consider downsizing? For me, it really comes back to two key things.


That connects to the reason, which is that maintaining a larger house takes more time. It takes more time to clean. There are more things that can break and need to be fixed. There are more things that simply need attention. And since my wife got ill a smaller place is easier for all.

Another reason: The property taxes are higher. The insurance is higher. The maintenance costs are higher. Sure, it’s theoretically growing equity at a faster rate, but that doesn’t help with out-of-pocket costs, and I’m not convinced at all that the growth in the value of the house makes up for the much higher insurance costs and maintenance costs and property taxes.

In other words, living in a smaller home means lower housing bills and more free time, both of which sound appealing to me.
Some people view their homes as a status symbol.
Having a big house is not the sign I look for to indicate to myself that I’m successful. I look at other things. Am I engaged in work that I enjoy? Do I have time for leisure and relaxation? Do I have a good relationship with the people closest to me? That, to me, is success.

Because of that, I don’t feel an external need to own a large house. Several years ago, I did, hence the purchase of our current relatively large house. That sense of a house providing an internal or external sense of status has faded greatly in my mind and, with it, the driving desire to own a large home has faded as well.

Finding the Right Balance

So let’s say I was actually in the market to buy a smaller house. My intent would be to buy this new house, sell our current house, and pocket the difference in value, then enjoy the lower bills and lower time investment. Makes sense, right?


The first problem that pops up is finding the right size. I’m obviously open to a smaller house, but how small?

The challenge that’s left, then, is to deal with the stuff we’ve accumulated over the years in our current home. The boxes in our closets. The furniture in rarely-used rooms. The loft and the shelves in the garage full of all kinds of items.
 
What do we do with all of that stuff?
Closets need to be emptied out and organized. This actually includes a lot of different categories of things, so let’s look at each of those categories.We need to shred old papers. We have several boxes of old papers that simply need to be shredded. At this point, electric bills from 2009 serve no real purpose, especially since we have digital copies of those things. They simply need to be shredded and properly disposed of, which is itself a sizable task.
We need to honestly evaluate our lesser-used items. Almost every closet in our home is full of items that we rarely use. This is a tricky problem because it’s so easy to envision uses for those items, but the honest reality is that we rarely – if ever – use those things.

The challenge, then, is to break through the visions of using the items to the reality that we don’t actually use those items, and that can be trickier than it sounds.

We need to smartly organize the stuff we’re keeping. An unorganized space means that stuff takes up more space than it otherwise would and/or some things are not easily accessible. A well-organized space means everything takes up minimal space while still being easily accessible. Our closets and other storage spaces tend toward the former, unfortunately.


Once we figure out what items we’re actually holding onto, some serious reorganization of our closets and storage spaces need to occur. Things like temporary shelves, wire racks, clearly-labeled boxes, and so on are definitely in order. Think of it as a proving ground of sorts for the concept of having a smaller home.


The idea of moving – and losing such close access to those things – is something that none of them enjoy. I personally don’t have anything that ties me to this location nearly as much, but my family’s needs are pretty important to me.

Second, there is no additional reason to move beyond the time and money savings from a reduced house footprint. We have no reason to move for work. We have no reason to move for school. We have no reason to move for social reason. We have only a real reason to move for improved access to help for my wife. Our new and current location is pretty good in all of those regards.



While I think a smaller home would definitely hit a somewhat sweeter spot, when I compare our home to some of the much larger ones that are in some of the newer housing developments nearby, our home seems pretty modest by comparison. Our energy bills are what I would consider quite reasonable (especially compared to what we paid when we first moved in) and our property taxes and insurance rates aren’t going to improve drastically unless we move much further away from nearby cities.

Finally, it’s honestly going to be a lot of work and we’re already pretty time-strapped. This is more of a “resistance” thing than a real reason for not moving, but without a compelling reason to move forward on it, this kind of “resistance” is powerful at holding a person back from making a move.
So, if the decision is essentially made for us to downsize, what’s the benefit of even thinking about it like this?


Well, first of all, no one’s life is guaranteed to ever be the same forever. Over time, many of those factors that work against moving into a smaller home are going to shift and move us toward a smaller home. When our children grow older and leave the nest, many of the factors that encourage us to stay in this house are going to shift and encourage us to downsize. It’s also good to have a smart plan in place if we ever need to downsize for financial reasons or for other personal reasons.

No we have moved and I look back to my younger self, and we bought a smaller house, I’ve sat down and bought
something just a bit smaller with a totally different layout.

 



That house would cost less. It would have lower property taxes and lower insurance. It would also require less time and effort for maintenance. And I wouldn’t actually lose any genuinely useful living space.

Would I listen? Probably not. What I would hope for instead is that I would give more careful thought about my home purchase and what we really needed, which in the end is the purpose of this post.


If you’re considering a home purchase, give some thought to a home on the smaller end of the spectrum. A smaller home will save you money and save you time and it’ll likely not reduce the living space you use every day.


Good luck it will be your choice anyway



The Old Sailor,

Talking and Writing

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