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In the business of Real Estate and
Auctions for over 35 years, I’ve have been aware of
the fact that someday we all will have to say
goodbye to the Old House.
Leaving the old house which we have known and loved
for many years is an experience of which gives the
strongest willed a heartstring a sharp wrench in the
throat and the eyes may swell up also.
The empty rooms, echoing footsteps and the memories
of happy times, family dinners, kids, good times,
are the memories that seem to be crowding in as we
take that last slow walk thru the old house. All
these memories all add up to a moment that lingers
in our mind.
The movers have gone, taking away our furniture and
all the boxes of personal items and all that remains
for us to do is to lock the front door and walk
away. It is one of those unmistakable memories in
our lives.
While there will be sadness in leaving the OLD HOUSE
in which we have spent a significant part of our
lives, there is also the anticipation of the new
chapter which is about to begin. There’s the new
house.
As with any other experiences we face in life, there
are lessons to be learned in the process of moving
out of the old house. We remember the many memories
but do we remember how much effort and time we spent
in preparing the old house for the sale? That in
itself was an experience in preparing the old house
to go on the market. We all want the value for the
old house, so we paint, carpet, maybe put on a new
roof, plant shrubs, wash the windows, clean out the
storage areas and closets. Therefore, there is no
conflict between heritage and achieving the best
price for the old house. The two neatly blend
together.
It is amazing when preparing the
old house for sale, we call our REALTOR to discuss
what needs to be done to get the highest value and
walk thru and around the old house and make a
tickler list with things to do. And the list gets
longer of jobs for us to do. The most surprising
will be the tasks which have been hanging on for
years because they were either too difficult or too
unpleasant to tackle or the expense was too great.
We all will find that these will often be
accomplished in surprisingly easy fashion, simply
because of the picture in our mind of the new house
and how we are going to change colors, carpet and so
on.
We will find at the end when just about everything
has been done, that our pleasure in living in the
old house has never been greater.
The lesson to be learned from this is clearly is to
not to keep putting off the difficult and unpleasant
tasks. One of the lessons is to tackle the
unpleasant tasks first. In this way, your time in
your next OLD HOUSE will be much more satisfying
when it comes time to move on.
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