Name: Steven Fitzpatrick, who is retired, and Dominic Lopez, who works in the food and beverage industry
The home: A three-bedroom, 2-1/2-bath split-level home with a basement built in 1965.
Where: Marietta
Why they sold: To move to Palm Springs, Calif. "We had never really intended to sell the house. We just got to the point in our lives where we wanted to move more toward a retirement phase," Lopez said. "Atlanta is a wonderful place. It's just such a big, busy city. I didn't want to be in a big city any longer; I wanted to be in a smaller community."
Time on market: 44 days
Original price: $162,500
Sale price: $162,500
What it took: Since they had lived in the home for 20 years, a number of projects needed to be done, such as painting inside and out, putting a new roof on the shed, repairing the fence and decluttering. "We started to sort through the things and edit out things we didn't need any more. We tried to make necessary repairs as well," Lopez said. "We wanted the house to be in good condition when we sold it." They spent an estimated $10,000 on those changes.
“I was very nervous about selling the house because I had watched other houses sit there unsold, month after month after month,” Lopez said. “That’s one of the reasons that we wanted it to be in such good shape, because we had watched other houses in the neighborhood go unsold.”
The home was staged to emphasize the open layout, which had been the result of renovations that also turned a porch into a sunroom and features such as custom trim work.
Potential stumbling block: Since they were moving to the West Coast, they did not want to rent the house. "I was concerned about leaving the house empty. I did not want to have renters in my house. I wanted the house to be able to be sold and shown," Lopez said. Assisted by their agent, Jody White of Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby's International Realty, they worked with Showhomes of Atlanta, which brought in a home manager, someone to stage and live in the home. (They do not pay rent, but do pay electric and gas bills.) The day they left, the house was available to be shown to potential buyers. The home manager moved in a couple of weeks after they listed the home and a 21-day notice was required for the home manager to move out. But the house sold only two weeks after the home manager moved in. They offered to pay for the home manager's electric and gas bills, so the August 2012 closing date would happen, Fitzgerald said.
Seller's hint: Clean the house. Remove fingerprints and scuff marks from the floors and walls. "Scrub that house from top to bottom," Lopez said.
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