Our experience selling two homes in the Pacific Northwest before moving to Portugal.
Deciding to sell our home and rental property in the US was an emotional and logical exercise. In the end, we decided to sell both homes. Let’s get into this.
I’m your favorite “all or nothing” lady, so you KNOW I wanted to sell it all. Mr. Scribbles is a more balanced human, sentimental and logical.
Keep or Sell?
Most of the time, we try to make decisions through the lens of (1) what will make us the most money and (2) give us the most options in the future. We KINDA followed this logic with our choice, but with one important wildcard variable.
Which option will make us the most money and the most options?
This is a tough one.
If we kept the houses we’d have the option to return to the PNW and pick up where we left off or sell the houses if we changed our minds. Our homes would appreciate an unknown amount but we wouldn’t have easy access to a large amount of capital to finance our early retirement in Portugal.
If we sold the houses we’d be able to finance our early retirement in Portugal and have money available should we decide to buy a home somewhere else. In the meantime, our money would continue to grow in our investment accounts.
We sold both properties at the top of the market in 2022 before interest rates spiked and while there were still bidding wars on every home. With that context, I think we did REALLY well. Could we have made more money holding the properties as rentals for another couple of years while other people paid our mortgages and they continued to appreciate? Possibly.
The wildcard.
When we decided to sell, it was because we decided that we didn’t want to raise our family in the US. The happiness and the safety of our boys would trump any calculation or logical argument about maintaining large, physical assets in the US.
Primary Residence.
Mr. Scribbles loved our home. It had everything he had ever wanted in a home and that made it tough for him to part with. But the market conditions made it hard to keep. We explored many options to keep our property while making money off of it and retaining future options. I spoke with professionals in the corporate housing space, short, medium, and long-term rental spaces, and several realtors.
In the end, we didn’t want to be overseas landlords. Even with a property manager, the stress of someone else living in and potentially not caring for our largest asset scared the bejesus out of me.
The other fact that ultimately pushed us to sell was that we knew we wouldn’t want to return to that same neighborhood. That topic is for a happy hour.
We purchased our primary residence in 2012 and we sold the property in April 2022. We sold the house for 3x what we bought it for.
Rental Property.
The condo was built in the early 1980s. The complex was in OK condition but there were a few big-ticket repairs on the horizon that would have increased our already high HOA dues. Additionally, the market wouldn’t support a large enough rent increase to maintain our slim margins. We could’ve continued down the same path with long-term renting, but I had a strong feeling that the real estate market was hot enough for us to make an outsized return on this investment.
We purchased the rental property in 2018 and we sold the property in April 2022. We made a six-figure profit on this property.
Choosing a Realtor.
It was February 2022 when we started looking for a realtor. We interviewed four realtors from four brokerages. We met with each individual at our home and asked them the same questions about the market, their process, and what their approach would be for our properties given our unique set of circumstances.
The four brokerages ranged from “discount” to luxury.
The “discount” brokerage had the lowest fees and the worst customer service. More than once it took them a week to respond to an email. Time kills all deals, my friends.
The realtor from the luxury brokerage was a friend, or so we thought. When we told him that we would be working with another realtor, he decided that we were no longer friends. His strategy would have cost us thousands of dollars in upgrades prior to listing, also, he wanted to delay listing which would have resulted in us missing out on the top of the market, and, he was going to charge us the highest fees out of the four realtors.
We ended up going with Redfin and we had a great experience. Our Redfin agent was very knowledgeable about the local market dynamics, had a stellar team of support professionals available around the clock, and he was very hands-on during the entire process. I feel that we got the best offers, terms, and timing by working with our Redfin agent. Thanks, Hal!
How I Staged Our Home For $50.
I didn’t want to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on staging, so my Redfin agent walked me through our entire house detailing everything that needed to be fixed, added, moved, or hidden. I’m very proud of the work I did to stage our home. It looked immaculate for pictures and tours. I bought everything from Target or Home Goods so that I could return 99% of everything. In the end, I spent $1,400 to stage our home and was able to return $1,350 worth of products. Staging cost me $50!!!
It’s strange how you can live in a house for 10 years and then not miss it for one minute.
The In-Between Time.
We sold our home in April before we had our approved visas and passports back. This was an incredibly stressful time for Mr. Scribbles and I. The biggest stress was what we’d do if we needed to vacate our home before we could leave for Portugal. Thankfully, the stars aligned and we received our approved visas around the time of closing and were able to stay in our home until the day we flew out. The buyers even agreed to keep our furniture so we were able to sleep in our beds the night before we left.
Making the decision to ship or ditch your stuff is highly personal. But you also need to consider that if you “need” to bring all the trappings of your American life to another country, you might be missing out on the adventure of adapting to your new home country. In another post, I’ll talk about how we arrived at a fully furnished apartment, where to buy furniture and clothes in Lisbon, and more.
