Well, we did it. We sold the house in CA. It goes into escrow tomorrow. The buyers want a 30 day closing, but realistically, it'll probably be closer to 45 days. They wanted to be in the house by Christmas. Mom was a basket case during the Open House and showing phase. She hated having to leave the house, often on 15 minutes notice. She really didn't do well. Luckily, the house was only on the market for 17 days. She's doing better now.
Now comes the tricky part. Mom & I are going to be heading up to Washington to look for our new home next week. Of course we have to make an offer contingent upon closing the sale of the one in CA, but we're confident that one will go thru. The problem is timing. Lots of people don't want to move around Christmas. Yikes!
Wish us luck!
My brother has been great with taking over with Mom when I needed time off. It used to be that we'd go up there for the summer and I'd spend the summer with my daughter and she'd spend it with my brother, but that got to be too difficult lately, with Mom needing to come home early to her doctors and her own bed and the comfort of having me take care of her. So we decided to move her home up there, so I can still have respite, still have family time, and Mom can still have doctors, still have her own bed and familiar surroundings and her dog. It should be a win-win (hopefully).
I'm glad that you all are moving closer to family. Hopefully they will offer to help you out once in a while so that you can have some me-time.
We've got a couple houses lined up to look at in Felida - I hear it's a nice area. I'd actually like to be SE - that's where my brother lives, but it seems like all the houses I find that would work out well for us are NW.
We already had the move estimate done (we're having packers do everything), so we won't have to lift a finger except to point. None of us are in any kind of shape to pack or move anything. We just have to tighten up our dates. Right now it should be somewhere around Dec. 15th.
Glad to hear that you will be house hunting next week, good time to go. Even around Thanksgiving sellers don't mind buyers seeing their house. At one time I was Realtor and had clients wanting to see houses on Thanksgiving Day.... I had sellers so anxious to sell, they would want to set a place at their dining room table for us :)
Hope you find exactly what you are looking for. Inventory of homes drop drastically around Christmas, they are still for sale but temporarily off the market.... but I find houses look delightful with the holiday decorations.
You'd be surprised about Christmas moves, if the home you find is perfect, a full price offer [as long as the list price was reasonable] bring visions of dollar signs dancing in the seller's head, thus the seller will have no issues wanting to move even on Christmas day :)
Oh, it's very VERY cold up this way...