T-Minus 322 days: We have a lot to pack!

 We have 46 weeks left before we move. I thought it might be fun to ask "If we pack one room per week, could we get it all done?" I identified 35 areas of our house that need to be packed: garage, storage room, pantry, kitchen, hall closet, kids rooms, the kids closets, etc etc. If we pack one area per week we will only have 10 weeks to spare!

After identifying the 36 areas of our house, the next thing I did was list the rooms and then select the one room I thought should be done absolutely last. That was: The essential kitchen items. We have to eat and we have to cook. We don't need to have everything that is in our kitchen available right up to the last moments, but we do need some basic items. So, the essential kitchen items went into June 2021 to be packed last.

Then, I looked at the list again and pick the next item that should be last. Of course, that was the master bedroom. Sure, there might be some things we can pack along the way. But when I say "packed" I mean it is ready for someone to walk into the room, grab the items, and put them on a truck. My bedroom is going to be the last for that! So, the week before the kitchen gets done, we'll do the master bedroom.

I repeated this process, putting each location in order. The kitchen and bedrooms will be done last. The garage and the rooms in the basement will get done first. Everything else fits somewhere in between.

I can't imagine we'll stick to this schedule. But what this exercise showed how much work we have yet to do, and there really isn't a lot of time to waste. We work all week and have a lot of things going on - finding time every week to complete packing one area is going to be difficult. But that is pretty much the pace we'll need.

As I already mentioned, packing isn't just purging and spring cleaning. It is getting the area ready to be loaded onto a moving truck when the time comes. That means (in addition to purging and cleaning) boxing things, labeling items so we know where they are going, etc. It also means that for a while we might be living out of boxes for some of our non-essential items. But there is no way we can wait until the end and do all this work within a few weeks.

T-minus 329 day: $10K Closing Costs?

 I was watching one of The Dis shows that talks about moving to Florida. This particular show was about the hidden costs. One of the hidden costs was the closing c ghosts on a house.? They reported the closing costs could be $10-13K! 

I don’t remember what the closing costs were on our New York homes, and honestly, the costs were added to our mortgage to be paid across 30 years. But I can’t imagine the cost was that much!

According to the report, because Florida doesn’t have income tax, they have to make up money somewhere. And one of those places ours to tap into the lucrative real estate market with some of the most expensive closing costs in the nation.

The said that when you look at the cost of a house, add another $10k to cover the closing cost.

T-Minus 330 Days: Cleaning Totes

If you read this blog enough, you know we have around 250 totes. Most of the totes are stored in our basement in an area known as "Tub City" (see Tub City Tour).  Everything is carefully organized and inventoried. Tub City even has street names! Getting ready for Christmas? Grab the Red Totes on North Ave. Going camping? Get the Green Totes on West Ave. 

A significant portion of our purge effort has been to attack Tub City. As we clean out portions of Tub City, it makes room for other items from around the house to come to Tub City. We stage things in Tub City as we get ready to sell it on Market Place or the next yard sale. Several dozen tubs went to empty my mother's antiques at the antique store (which are now in the garage portion of Tub City).

I would like to report that we are whittling down Tub City - that it is getting smaller and smaller. I suppose it is, but it doesn't feel like it. North Ave has been cut in half, West Second Street is empty, and the Sump Pump Storage Room is about half empty, but the remaining areas remain mostly populated. My wife isn't very concerned about this... but I am! In 330 days, this place needs to be empty - all the way to the walls. And we are no where near that.

We spent part of this past weekend cleaning empty totes. We want to make sure that as we fill the totes with packing for Florida, the totes are clean. We set up an assembly line: one person scrubbing, another rinsing, one drying, and one putting stuff away. It felt like we were washing the kitchen dishes!

In the end, 50 of the totes were cleaned and ready for their next purpose. 50 done, 200 left to go!

T-Minus 335 Days: Purging and Selling Update

With the weekend's yard sale, I am ready to provide an update. Our goal is to sell enough stuff to pay for the move to Florida so we don't have to use our savings. 

The cost to move to Florida is anywhere between $10K and $20K. We have settled on a goal of $12K for our move. That means we have to use yard sales, Craig's List, Facebook Marketplace, and whatever we can to sell our stuff and raise the money.

We are just about 25% of the way there!

The majority of our sales income is coming from Facebook Marketplace.

I posted 224 items on Marketplace and Craig's list (I post them in both at the same time). The majority of our items have sold on Marketplace. Just 21% of the items I have posted are still for sale.

It is clear to me that Facebook Marketplace is where I should spend most of my effort.

My approach is to post items online at a good price. If the item doesn't sell within a day or two, it is unlikely to sell. After two weeks at that price, I drop the price by 10% and renew the listing so it appears at the top of the Marketplace list again. After the initial two week wait, I switch to waiting 7 days - then drop the price and renew. Marketplace lets you renew the listing 5 or 6 times. 

When I run out of renews, the product has been online for nearly two months! Anyone who wanted to buy it would have. I pull the product and put it in the next rummage sale for liquidation. If I think it is a really good product? I'll set it aside to be tried again in a few months.

This is the strategy I am using and so far it has worked pretty good for Marketplace. It isn't working for Craig's List and I'm not sure why. Perhaps people in my region don't use Craig's List very much. Or, perhaps I'm just doing Craig's list all wrong. 

That is the purging and selling update!