Thanks, guys. Rebecca, those are some of the things that the second realtor told us last night. :-) I wonder about the Sam's room, thing; would it be easier to keep his room with the bed and use a long blanket to hide things that I have to stick under there at a moment's notice for a showing? :-D Most of his toys that create clutter are ones he expressly likes to pay with outside of his room (riding vehicles, etc.) We may have to look into the rental thing, especially if we need to vacate quickly to facilitate a sale; I still need to teach here until December!

I've also been told/read that it helps to depersonalize the house - take down portraits, etc. We'll probably do that soon.

If you end up losing money, would the company pay you for the difference? I've heard that sometimes companies do that sort of thing.

Echo on what Rebecca said. And when/if you have an open house, light a few candles and bake some bread or cookies. People respond well to that yummy smell making them think of a home.

Good luck!

When we decided to sell our old house about two years ago I interviewed six agents before chossing one to sell our home. The first agent quoted us $120000 for our homw hich basically meant we couldn't move. The fourth agent had really done his homework and gave us a realistic quote (we ended up selling for $164900). Don't lose heart on the first guy who gives you a quote - the right realtor and the right buyer will be there when the time comes. For certain!

Having had a house on the market for a year (off and on, once for about eight months and the second time for four) there are a couple of things you can do to improve your chances.

Since you'll definitely be moving in January, you might want to pack every summer item and as many other household things as you can. Store them in boxes in the basement. Don't make yourself live out of boxes -- that's not useful or good for you. But pack up everything you can live without for the next three months. That way, the house will seem cleaner and will be easy to tidy up.

The other thing I reccomend would be to chose two or three home improvement projects. Work on them while the house is for sale. If the house doesn't sell immediately, two or three small improvements might help it sell a little later at a good price.

If Eric's company offers relocation services, they might be willing to rent you an apartment for a couple of months. It'd give you a cushion on selling the house in Toledo and will keep you from paying two mortgages/rents for a little while.

You had a good idea in the house hunting blog -- maybe you could make Sam's bedroom into more of a playroom? If he's sleeping in your room, you could take the bed down to make extra play space and keep everything in his room. He loves his bed, but would probably be distracted by extra play space so that he wouldn't object too much.

Try not to stress -- by February or so, this'll all be behind you and you can focus on the spring theater season in Chicago. Sam will love going to Cubs games:) Or White Sox games, I s'pose.