For a long time now we have been pondering whether to buy a big motor boat. Yeah, I know, we are sailors. Well, ok, Dave is a sailor. Melissa is cook, deck hand, and supply and logistics officer. Living aboard a sail boat makes sense if you are going round the world. But its not the best boat for the Pacific Northwest where when its windy enough to sail the weather is crappy, and when its sunny, you can't see out because you are inside of a "cave". So, the debate about whether to change boats has raged on for years.
Until earlier this year when a Zillow email hit Melissa's inbox saying what our Kirkland condo was worth. Might be worth that much to someone else, but not to us! So, after years of thinking about it, we emailed our agent to ask whether Zillow's valuation was for real. A few days later she confirmed that yes, the condo really is worth near to $2 Million. So we say "Yep. Let's do this."
Within days we were both on a plane back to Seattle where we packed up the condo, gave away all our furniture, and put what remains of our belonging in storage. We stripped Apsaras of all our personal belongings and that all went into storage too.
Meanwhile Dave had been looking for a new boat. We visited a couple down in Tacoma, but none were "the" boat. Until he found Sea Star 7. One look at the photos and we were both drooling. This is the dream boat. She has everything right down to the heated bathroom floors! Took us all of 5 minutes once we got aboard to tell the broker we would take it.
Grass does not grow under these feet. It was 65 days from the time we made the decision to move forward on a sale of the condo till the time we closed on the boat.
Timeline:
- Tuesday January 11 - We send email to our agent to ask "how much is condo worth"
- Sunday January 16 - Meet with agent to confirm value and hit "go" button on selling
- Thursday January 20 - Fly back to Seattle from Mexico
- Friday January 21 - Start packing, giving away furniture, decided on new flooring color
- Saturday January 22 - Movers come to help pack. We intended to have them take a truck load to good will, but they didn't get there in time and the whole truck load ended up at the dump.
- Sunday January 23 - We looked at a couple of boats, but nothing interesting
- Monday to Wednesday January 24 to 26 - Work and run errands
- Thursday January 27 - Go to look at Sea Star 7
- Friday January 28 - Make offer on Sea Star 7
- Saturday January 29 - Offer on boat accepted in the middle of moving out of the condo
- Sunday January 30 - Move out of condo and Apsaras completed
- Monday January 31 - Friday February 4 - Condo interior paint
- Tuesday February 1 - Sea trial of Sea Star 7
- Wednesday February 2 - Fly back to Mexico
- Monday February 7 & 8 - New flooring was put in
- Wednesday February 9 - Condo cleaning
- Thursday February 10 - Condo Staging
- Friday February 11 - Photos for listing
- Monday February 14 - Condo went on Market
- Wednesday February 16 - Boat inspection and survey - which ultimately came back relatively clean
- Friday February 18 - Offer review and purchase acceptance on condo
- Thursday March 17 - Condo closes
- Tuesday March 22 - Boat closes