Here’s the house we are moving out of. We’ll miss this pool!
Sue Ann has mentioned a couple of times that my husband, Russell, and I have been moving frequently since we moved out of the main Villa Park house. I hear some of you are curious as to what exactly we’re doing with our vagabond ways, so I’m here to fill you in!
When Sierra moved off to college, we decided to downsize. We had just finished a “homestead flip,” where we bought a house, fixed it up, and sold it for a good profit. The next house we found didn’t work out (Kerrville Folkways), and we were looking to try something new and fun and to learn more about the greater Austin, Texas area.
We ended up signing with an innovative company called Showcase Properties of Austin (also known as Dream Home Manager), which specializes in helping sell high-end properties in this area for clients who are having trouble selling them because no one is currently living there. According to them:
“It is a fact that vacant listings look & show better when they are staged and at Showcase Properties, we are passionate about assisting you in doing just that with our no cost solution. Statistics show that a finely staged and manicured home sells 70-80% faster and for 13% more money than an equivalent vacant home.”
That’s where we come in! The company finds qualified people (they call them Home Managers) who will rent the homes at a substantial discount, stage them with their own furnishings, and keep the house ready to show at an hour’s notice. With my background in home decorating and real estate, I was confident we had the ideal kind of furnishings to help sell a house, so I knew we were the perfect candidates for this job! And since Russell and I have spent our married lives moving around for the military and his work, we are comfortable pulling up stakes and starting again. Russ says he likes it because, “It makes you weed out your crap!” We’ve become very good at not holding onto stuff.
You can see how this works out well for home sellers, too. The property is rented and someone else helps with the utilities, plus you don’t have to keep checking to keep the house show-ready.
When a house sells, we get 30 days’ notice, look through the available Showcase Properties homes, and find a new place to live! After the initial move-in when we we started out, they pay for movers to switch houses.
Hermann says please like and share!