House Selling Update: Pool Edition

If you have been following me on Instagram you have seen we are building a pool at our current house.  That has brought TONS of questions so I figured it was time for a House Selling Update: Pool Edition.

#1 asked question : Are you still moving?  

YES, we are still moving.  Believe me, if you would have told me 6 months ago we would be building a pool at our current house I would have thought you were crazy, but here we are.

Our home has been on the market for awhile now.  We had a bunch of showings, tons of people loved it, we got close to getting several offers, but at the end of the day it always came down to the fact that buyers wanted a pool. 

Originally, when we built our home, the plan was to put in a pool. As soon as we decided this wasn’t our forever home and we would be moving we scratched all plans of a pool.  We had always heard that you never get money out of your pool so we decided to hold off.  Well, fast forward to now and we have learned the opposite.  I think typically that is a good rule of thumb, you don’t get the entire value of your pool when you go to sell your home, however we are in a unique situation.  With our particular area, neighborhood, price point, size of home, etc, buyers want a pool.  They don’t want to have to go through the construction of one and they want the price worked into their mortgage.  We had discussed giving a pool allowance, etc, but at the end of the day, buyers in the area want a pool already at the home.  Not only was no pool a deal breaker for most of the people who saw our home, but so many never even came to view our home because there was no pool.

Our realtor Lynda Roundtree with Luxe Premiere Realty has been incredible.  If you are looking for a local realtor I cannot recommend her enough.  She is smart, sweet, patient and full of ideas.  She has been with us on this journey and after reviewing everything together, comps, etc, we decided the best move was to take our home off the market, keep it as a pocket listing, put in a pool and come back to the market in the Spring.  We listened to the feedback, looked at what was selling, talked through all our options, and decided this was the best decision with the info we had.

We will be raising the price of our home to reflect the pool, but we are still the cheapest dollar per sq foot in our entire neighborhood.  We are hoping to sell it and then move to a rental while we build our new dream home.

This pool is very different to build than the next one will be.  I have tons of opinions and visions about the pool at our new home, but for this one we just wanted a beautiful pool that fits our home and is the most universal.  This pool is really for the people who buy our home, not us.  The kids will be super excited to use it when ready, but we won’t be enjoying it for very long.

We met with several pool builders, but ultimately decided to build with Splash Master Pools.  Ryan is the best and we know we made the right decision.  Ryan builds all over Highland park and has done some beautiful pools.  He is incredible to work with.  He has been helping us with all the things. Color, design, etc.  He is telling us what is the most popular color, tile, depth, size, etc and making that work for our home.  The pool is 35.6″ long, 15.5 Wide and 18.5 gallons.  He is on site everyday.  We told him we needed the pool built fast and he is delivering.  

We started breaking ground while we were in Vegas 2 weeks ago and tomorrow they start tile.  We had rain all week which pushed us back a week, but it is still so fast.  He thinks the pool will be done in 2 weeks. Ready for swimming in 3.  So exciting!  Most people I have talked to don’t have great things to say about their pool builder, but we are the opposite.  It has been so smooth and amazing.  We will be hiring them to build the pool at our new home as well.  So many of you reached out to me in Instagram when you saw the progress of our pool.  I cannot recommend Splash Master Pools enough.  It is a small boutique company with great designs, always on site, do what they say, very helpful, work fast, fair pricing and do an excellent job with a quality pool.  When we were shopping pool companies 2 of our friends highly recommended Splash Master.  One of them works in the pool industry and said they do an incredible job and the other friend built a pool with them last year and were extremely happy!  We feel the same.

Anyway, there is your update!  We are waiting for the pool to be done (2 weeks hopefully) and then we will put our home back on the market in February.  Stay tuned. . .