Well that was a downer. To watch Cal lose their lead, then ultimately lose the game was heart-breaking. Ugh.
Before I get entrenched with work this week, I wanted to quickly post that we definitively sold my condo. I mentioned previously that selling a home has to be one of the most stressful life events, ranking up there with losing a job, moving to another city, and getting married. Funny, I should probably count myself lucky since, comparatively, the process was actually really smooth since we took offers 10 days after it went on the market.
I had to give my tenants notice. They weren’t too happy.
We staged it ourselves, painting the whole place and moving furniture from Dean’s apartment into my condo. I bought a bed from Mancini’s Sleepworld for $200 which included delivery, then turned around and sold it for $100 on Craigslist. We also bought a head board (that we returned), bedding (that I carefully repackaged and returned), and San Francisco prints that I framed and hope to sell. So total we spent about $1,000 to get my place ready, primarily to cover the cost and labor for painting.
I paid $455,000 for my condo at the height of the market in 2005.
We listed it for $499,000.
Sold it for $525,000.
Frankly, I just wanted to break even. I’m very happy to have made a profit because I know other people who lost money, including the other original owners of the two other units in the building. They sold during the downturn while I held on.
I learned a couple lessons during this whole experience:
Do not buy during a frenzy. I feel like we’re currently experiencing an unsustainably hot real estate market.
Buy when others aren’t.
Next time you buy something (i.e., clothes, books, picture frames, toys, antiques), ask yourself if you really need it. It’s incredible how much unnecessary crap we accumulate.
