Sold!

When we decided to spend this year in Israel, we were fairly confident that we would be able to sell our house before we moved. The problem was we were so busy doing other things, that we didn't really do anything to market the house. The smart thing to do would've been to hire a real estate broker, but it was hard for me to stomach paying thousands of dollars in commission to someone who most likely would be selling my house to someone I already know.

We had a lot of interest in the house and a lot of people said they would put in offers, but people knew we were moving and assumed we were desperate and thought they could get the house below market value by waiting us out. I understand that everyone wants a bargain and I'm not going to go on a rant (although it is tempting) about the horrible (IMO) things that people are willing to do to save a few dollars.

It was hard moving before the house was sold, but we had a number of good verbal offers that were promising to send over contracts any day, so we weren't really worried. Long story short, not long after we moved, friends of ours looked at the house and really wanted to buy it. We had a couple offers we were working on that were better financially, but after all we went through with people playing games and trying to take advantage of us, we figured it was best to deal with someone we could trust. It's tricky negotiating with friends, especially when you're on opposite sides of the world and sending messages through Facebook. Fortunately we were able to bring in a realtor to help us work through it and we agreed to a deal.

As could be expected, as soon as we signed the accepted offer, we got a big increase in interest in the house. People were calling claiming to be willing to pay our full asking price and even after we told them we were under contract, they continued to check in every couple weeks hoping the house would be available again. It took a long time to actually close on the house, but we finally got it done last week! It's impossible to know what would've happened if we waited a couple weeks longer before accepting an offer, it seems likely we would've walked away with more money, but I'm choosing to be happy with this deal anyway. Extra money is definitely nice, but we're happy that we were able to sell to someone we know and we're really happy not to have to worry about paying utilities, insurance and property taxes for an empty house any longer!

As nice as it is to be done with the burden of paying the bills, it's sad to part with a house we put so much time and effort into and we will miss it. Here's some pictures of the house from the time we bought it, until we moved. I think you'll be able to tell which pictures are "before" and which are "after".