Selling in Silicon Valley - Want to come along for the wild ride?

[2017SoFarSoGood]

I'm prepping my house for sale in Silicon Valley, California - just south of San Francisco. The property market is completely insane. It is astonishing who can actually pay these prices - especially when you realize that most purchases are cash. That's right, cash. With no contingencies and no chain.

Will be chronicling the madness of this sale here. I will then be purchasing a smaller (cheaper we hope) property nearer to SF. They say 'good luck with that. Feel free to join in, or simply ignore. Should be very interesting.

I work for an estate agent and there is none of this preparation for photographs. Lucky if the bed is made.

We keep reminding each other that potential buyers will be told it is occupied. Hard not to be too critical of ourselves during this prep period.

When we were house shopping there was someone in the BED during advertised open house.

Oh yes! We've had that too!

Cleaning squad and gardeners today . It already no longer feels like my home. I am pretending I don't care what the stager does tomorrow, but secretly I am already unfavorably comparing her tat to mine

I'm really quite concerned about my DH and his actual inability to see when he has left every frickin drawer or cabinet gaping open. Actually argued about this last evening, and this morning had to go behind him closing them up. He works from home so will be the last person in before viewings. I suspect I've left it too late to send him to obedience school.

So angry. The cleaners appear to have actually left dirt where there was none. Literally swished dirty water over my polished wood floors. They are now white streaked and have no polish. The bathrooms are gross. In fact one was used by a woman. Don't ask how I know but the evidence was left. Grim. Utterly grim.

DH is now polishing the floors. I refuse. The agent is meeting the cleaners here first thing tomorrow. Here's to hand holding.

Good luck!

Looks pretty good, still not very clean but staged quite nicely. Certainly different. Let's see how it photographs tomorrow.

I've polished the oak stair hand rails. Always makes me feel like it's a nice instant shine, oddly.

Wow! Just Wow!!

Those views are spectacular!

Been following with interest, your house is beautiful cant wait to hear what happens next

Oh gosh the making of the bed was a day's work this morning. Thank goodness nobody is in the other rooms! Two Queens have enough pillows for twenty beds.

Is a drizzly grey day today. Here's to pictures.

The staging reminds very much of the TV programme we get over here called 'Buying and Selling' - it's that kind of hotel lounge way of zoning the living room furniture around rugs and coffee tables. It looks lovely, but no one really lives like that.

Yes WowFudge spot on. It does leave nice paths to guide you to the view.

Not sure how people with kids or even a baby at home could do this. My poor DGSs will have to forego the sleepovers for the duration.

I staged the nursery in the room I typically have as my dressing room. It is still useable

A friend of family "staged" my mother's house to sell it for a good price.
I would have been so hopeless at that kind of thing.

We're signing with an agent on Monday, your story is so exciting!

Ours is just a boring 2 up 2 down in London which I'm staging as how to live family life in this house

Perfectly if DH was left to his own devices our staging story would be Life with every drawer, every door, ajar!

Good luck with the agent. You've got to feel good about them, I think. Your sale is really in their hands.

That's what we did with our two up two down, perfectly

We still have the pristine stunt tablecloth underneath the tablecloth that the boys have covered in biro and tomato sauce stains! Saving it for our new house!

I have a DH who has had to be trained to shut drawers properly, 2017. Infuriating!

My dh works in Silicon Valley . The house prices are shocking!!! Have you sold yours yet ?

officially on the market on Tuesday imjessie so fingers crossed!

the runup to all of this is exhausting. Can't begin to think about the next step which is actually buying somewhere to live once this sells. I'm 'compartmentalizing' this whole thing.

Exciting . We are British and had the opportunity to go there but i declined when I saw what we could afford . !!

so, I did not share this but shall now since the reference to 'stunt tablecloth' reminded me. The stagers biggest error IMHO was to put a tray with FAKE FRUIT on it. It is flipping California. The fruit basket of the world. WHY???? I had a very small shit fit, and the realtor went home and picked three grapefruit from her own tree, in her own garden.

I am deliberately not looking at titles on the stunt books (we removed ALL of our 'quite erudite' personal library as requested); fake flowers and plants (that is actually making me sad since we were told to put ours away, and they died in the excessive heat last week) but I draw the line at fake fruit. Even stunt pineapples are real.

I suspect I shall be flower shopping before the open house. A few real white orchids in bloom, and white roses for the bathrooms. Sheesh.

Okay. and breathe.

they tell me that for the pictures fake fruit is always used. No flies and no weeping/oozing when it is hot. Maybe. However, it is just bad form.