Monday, September 29, 2014

It's been a MONTH?!?

Wow.  It's been almost a month since my last post...and I was sooooo planning on picking up the pace on the blog posting front. I thought things would slow down a bit, but that simply hasn't been the case so far.

I'm actually writing this while taking a brief break from the mad push to get ready for our big estate sale. Originally my wife and I were planning on hiring an estate liquidation company to come and do the sale, but in a "oh...I can do that" fit of insanity, we decided that we would just do it ourselves.

Part of the reason for making this decision is that the estate sale companies take 40% of the proceeds of the sale as their fee.  Having spent the last couple weeks going through all our stuff and turning our house into a "this was your life" showroom, I can say that 40% is probably a bargain.  I can't believe how much stuff has been packed in our house.  All this stuff could easily sink 5 or more catamarans the size of ours (my wife was thinking a garbage barge).  And I don't even think we were as bad as most of those around us in the "good American consumer" category.

I doubt this will fit on the boat...
...or this.

We've also met with a couple real estate agents to get an idea of what to expect when selling our house.  In the 18 years we've owned the house, the housing market has done some pretty strange things across the nation.  Fortunately, it sounds like our area is still a sellers market and we should do OK...probably not as well as we did selling my father-in-law's place (it went for almost $20K over list price), but well enough.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

In other news, our boat is still on the hard in Virginia. Unfortunately the yard hasn't been doing a very good job of getting work done on time or anywhere near estimate.  So, pretty soon I will be returning to Rover to finish the necessary out-of-the-water repairs, get her back in the water, and get her heading south for warmer waters.

Well, I think my 15 minute break is over...so back to work. Only 3 days left to get everything dug out, cleaned up, displayed and priced for the sale.  Wish me luck!

Oh, and if you happen to be in the Denver area this weekend, feel free to swing by the sale and say hi.  Here is a link to one of the advertisements for the sale with the info: Broomfield Colorado Estate Sale.


4 comments:

  1. Good luck on your estate sale! Hope all goes well. Maybe we'll see you in VA later this season with Nathan Moore!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Jennifer (and Nate). Hope everything is going well for you guys.

      Delete
  2. Mike:
    Thanks very much for this blog.
    I find it particularly relevant since I too live in Colorado (Longmont to be exact) and work as a Software Engineer. I see myself behind you by a couple of years, expecting to hit the retirement cruising scene after my boys 'retire' from CSU.
    -Andy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Andy. Thanks...but I feel I've been neglecting the blog a bit as of late...just too busy and too tired the last few weeks...hopefully get back into the swing of things soon though.

      Delete