[Barefoot]

Selling a house can be such a frustrating experience and it takes so much work to make your house "perfect" for showings. And yes, a "perfect" house shows much better than a messy one. After 20 years as a real estate broker, I have seen it all. I've actually shown houses where you had to carefully wade through piles of dirty laundry. And people asleep on the floor. But that is another story.

By the way, someone suggested that you fire your agent if an appointment is cancelled. That is just wrong. Appointments are generally made by a selling broker for their client, through the listing agent's office. The selling broker gets a last minute call ... my car won't start ... my babysitter didn't show up ... I have a migrane. And the appointment gets cancelled. Certainly not the agent's fault. But very frustrating for the seller nevertheless.

We had our CYV in TV for sale and believe me, selling in TV is even more frustrating than selling in other areas of the country. Because 90% of the people, when they start out looking in TV, aren't even looking in your specific area, they're just getting familiar with the territory. They are "tire kickers", just in TV looking around, trying to get the lay of the land, so to speak. They're not sure yet what Village they want to live in or what model they want to purchase. So they're just browsing. Nothing wrong with browsing, we all did it. And eventually the tire kickers will decide what they want, and hopefully your home will be perfect for them. But most showings in TV aren't "serious showings" as they would be is someone was interested in your particular model in your village. Now second showings are extremely important, and worth a lot of preparation time!

Having daily showings isn't bad if your house is always in meticulous shape. I always wanted to have fresh flowers around, classical music playing, all the lights on, cinnamon simmering on the stove, counter tops shining, etc. When you have two dogs and a cat, it takes considerable work to spruce up the house and remove the animals. In the summer, of course, you can't leave animals in the car so I used to park down the block with the air conditioning going, and wait, and wait, and wait. Lots of no-shows. It takes patience.

Anyway, hang in their, it's all worth it!