The Harrisons – Combining Households

 

The Harrisons had decided to combine households with Kathy’s mother, Pat. This meant selling their beloved North Hollywood home and finding a living situation that was comfortable for everyone. Navigating expectations, personalities and changing roles was challanging, but the family managed to find their happy spot.

How did you feel about selling the family home?

We initially had Pat (Mother In-Law) come live with us at Radford, but it just wasn’t working… it was just too small… two kids, 3 adults, a few critters. We were happy, but we were on top of each other. We loved our home but it was time to go

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How did you handle the money part of things?

Well, ultimately, Pat sold her two homes- her primary home in Montana and her condo in West LA and we used that for the replacement home. That gave us the luxury of buying a home, moving, and then putting our Radford home on the market.

What was the toughest part of getting your home on the market?

The biggest stress was worrying- what would we have to do to the house to get it ready for the market? Kathy and I are super busy with our careers and with the kids plus we were trying to unpack and settle into our new home. You guys were great.  You came in and gave us a detailed list of what would help us sell for top dollar. We loved how you collected quotes, scheduled the workers and made everything so darn easy for us!

(DIGGS- we loved working with Eric and Kathy in part because they really let us do what we do best- bring out the potential of a home.  Not everyone wants, or needs, that service! The house that Kendyl sold them was filled with creative juice, but the Harrison’s are a typical busy family with no time for the HGTV lifestyle. They wanted the DIGGS Transformation experience.

Once the Harrison’s moved out we were able to bring out the home’s creative side to the forefront. We collected multiple quotes for cleaning, landscape sprucing, painting, and staging. We spent hours with our architectural photographer to make sure that the pictures told a beautiful story of the life one would live in that home. Afterall, a picture of a room is one thing. A picture that hints at a LIFE is powerful.)

(Kathy) When you live in a house you always have these plans of fixes and improvements.  But then life happens and you don’t have time to do those things. (Pat starts laughing). So, with the staging were we wondering, “how can she make it look the way we had always planned but never had the time?” (Eric) Yes! How could the stager bring out our home’s potential? Because we knew that would make us money.

How did the staging turn out?

Finding the right stager was really tough!  Well, actually, you gave us the right stager immediately, but we thought the cost was way too much. We asked you to find other stagers that were more affordable and you certainly delivered.  You got 3 more proposals, 1 was about the same and two that were considerably less expensive. What we realized is that you get what you pay for.  The less expensive stagers would have put in nice furniture so the home was not vacant, but your first stager, Robyn, would transform our home into the home we always wanted to create. We were so impressed we hired her to furnish and decorate our new house.

Once Robyn was done it looked so amazing we started worrying that we had over improved the home for the location!  It looked really snazzy, far better than anything around us. But, you stuck to your guns on price and it all worked out.

Did you get the offers you wanted?

Oh gosh yes! That whole process went really quickly because of all the preparation that had been done.  We wound up with multiple offers that we had to choose from… which is a great problem to have! It was pretty nerve-wracking, but you helped us to see the pros and cons of each offer. A lot of it was trust in you, because you know what you are doing.

Thanks, Guys!!  We loved working with you and you are forever DIGGS Tribe.  Because you trusted our advice and allowed us to execute our complete plan we broke a sales record for your size of home in that area.  This, despite being directly across the street from the elementary school pick up/ drop off line.

Epilogue

Buyer Specialist Carin Hoffman found the perfect home for the two families in the Valley. There were two master suites so that both Pat and the Harrison’s were comfortable. The girls love the pool, the luxury of having their own rooms and having Grandma in their lives.

As always, thanks to DIGGS Tribe Member Steve O’Bryan- street photographer extraordinarie- for his great photos of the Harrisons. Follow Steve at www.smacksmog.com Staging was done by Robyn Navarro of Upstage Design. Follow Robyn at www.upstagedesign.com