My soapbox

I have some things I want to get off my chest. Here goes: When you are buying a house, be respectful of the people whose houses you are looking at. Do not spend an hour at their house doing who knows what. My house is not your playplace. Pick up after your child when you leave. It may be called a playroom but that does not mean it doesn't need to be clean. It is my house, I have things to do there. If you and your realtor need to talk, do it at his office. NOT MY HOUSE.
I am guilty of this one, but when you schedule an appointment to see a house, realize what you are asking of these people. Many have children and 15 minutes of your day to look at their house costs them at least 2 hours of stress and/or preparation. Do not go to look at a house just cuz you can. Be serious about it. And be on time if you can. If you can't, text or call. Yes, we are glad that you are interested in your house, but that doesn't mean you should be a jerk about it.

On a second note, you may have guesssed from the above post, but our house is for sale. We have a starter home and are not the first in the neighborhood to sell recently. All of the others were successful for sale by owner within a month. So we went that route. 7 weeks later, we decided to go with a realtor. Can I tell you when people come to look at my house and can't even say anything nice about it, it hurts? Our house is fairly plain. We don't have the right color paint or carpet or fancy furniture. For a while there we didn't have the money to do those things. Now that we do, there are so many other things that I would like to spend my money on. My house works just fine the way it is. And most days I don't get too depressed when I see how cute my neighbors' houses are. But when I have 8 people come to the house and not one of them likes it enough to even talk to us about buying it (or want to buy it, but change everything about it) it hurts my feelings. It just does. What is so wrong with my house that no one wants it? I've never been the most fashionable or put together person and most days it is not a big deal. But, when for 7 weeks I have people come and they won't even consider buying my house, it wears on me. Yes, that probably means I have low self esteem. But this is my house and it is where my children are safe and happy and loved, and it's sad that no one likes it. So that's what we've been up to lately and I HATE HATE HATE having to nag my kids 24/7 for 8 weeks to keep the house clean. I'm so done. Somebody remind me that this is for my good and this too shall pass......