Relocating to Berlin: Selling the House!

At various points during this process of preparing to move to Berlin, my wife and I have looked at each other and said, "Well, there's no stopping now!"  First it was when we told our families of our plans.  Then it was when we told our friends.  Then it was when we told our employers.  Then it was when we told our daughter's school.  Then it was when we hired a relocation adviser.  Then it was when we started to sell off our stuff. 

Today our house went on the market.

Well, there's no stopping now!

Up to this point, we always soothed our jittery nerves by telling ourselves that we could always change our minds.  While we might not have jobs by the end of July, we can always find new ones.  While our daughter might not have a place in her German school any more, we can always put her in our local public school for a year and reapply next spring.  While we might not have a house full of furniture, at least it would look less cluttered.  But now, with the house officially for sale, we will essentially be homeless once it closes if we don't leave.

I will admit to a certain sadness that we're leaving this house.  We moved to Vienna from Arlington, Virginia when our daughter was about 10 months old.  While Arlington was awesome for a couple of DINKs ("Dual Income, No Kids"), it was less satisfactory for a family with a young child.  Housing costs were high, few of our neighbors had children, and those who did were often too busy with their high-powered careers to have any interest in interacting with us.  Vienna was perfect.  Our neighborhood had a seemingly endless supply of kids almost the exact same age as our daughter.  There are excellent public schools - although we opted not to use them.  We managed to find a house that could fit us, our two cats, our two cars, our thousands of books, movies, and CDs, and my growing number of historical reenacting impressions for a very reasonable price (well, reasonable for the Washington, DC metro area).

The only downside of our house was that, when we bought it, it was in awful condition.  Other than having new windows, almost nothing had been updated in the house in years.  What updates had been done were done cheaply and poorly.  The house - like a few others we also found in the neighborhood - was like a 1970s version of Angkor Wat.  Trees were growing from every crevice of the property, covering the driveway and roof.  Wood retaining walls in the back yard were collapsing, while ivy tendrils crept over every corner of the backyard, hiding a menagerie of dubious and potentially threatening fauna and flora.

It took us seven years, more money than I can even calculate, and legions of top-grade contractors to make the house almost perfect.  As we were wrapping up our total renovation of our library and family room at Thanksgiving time last year, my wife and I looked at each other and only half-joked, "Well, now that that is done, it's just about time we moved."

And so, here we are.

Considering how hot the real estate market is in our neighborhood, we anticipate that it won't take more than a week or two to sell our house.  We are hoping to get at least asking price, although a long drawn-out bidding war between competing buyers would always be welcome.  After all, the profit that we make off of the house is what we will be living on in Berlin until we can find - or create - permanent jobs for ourselves there.

Fingers crossed!

UPDATE:  It took all of 72 hours, but we sold our house.  Other than making us enough money to live on until my wife and I can find work, the BIG bonus of this sale is that most of our furniture is conveying with the house.  We are excited for the buyers, who are moving into a house and a neighborhood that we dearly love.  We are even more excited for us because now we are in the home stretch of our move to Berlin.