We put our apartment on the market.

Sure, we thought about selling this summer when real estate in Manhattan was escalating outrageously fast but then we figured, who wants to make that much money so easily?

So now we’re selling it during a major recession.

Everyone knows when you are selling your home, you don’t need a broker. You just need the right signature scent. Some advocate baking cookies or an apple pie before an open house but those must be people who don’t store half their cookware in their oven.

So I went in search of the perfect candle. I was looking for a scent like, “This is the nicest apartment I’ve ever seen, I’ll pay absolutely anything!” but all I found was a lot of “Island Grapefruit” and “Deep Clover.”

I finally let Dylan pick out the scent, “Vanilla Citrus Zest” because 4 year-olds have an incredible aptitude for what moves real estate.

Then Rick and I noticed that we had a lot of damn stuff in our apartment.

So on the day of our open house, we moved a ton of it down the hall to one of our neighbor’s.

apartment-stuff

Obviously, we have really nice neighbors. Or maybe we stole the key to their apartment when they were out of town. Either way, we got rid of the junk.

And once we felt guilty about putting too much crap in their place, we dropped off a few things with this cute single guy who lives next door.  I just know he and his banking buddies are now playing drinking games with our Chutes and Ladders and having stroller races down the hall.

After cleaning our apartment out, it looked so nice I wanted to buy it myself.

And then we held our first open house.

And ONLY two couples came.

Out of 8 million people living in New York City, TWO COUPLES.

Afterward, we kind of felt like this…

rick-sad

But Rick and I don’t give up. Would Blair give up on Yale? Would Lilly give up on Rufus? Oh, you still don’t watch “Gossip Girl?” Ok, forget it.

So we held another open house the very next day and it proved a bit more successful.

Still, I’m starting to think that if we really want to move the suburbs, we might need more than a signature scent.

mama bird notes:

Speaking of the ‘burbs….Contributing mama Daphne Biener finally understands why folks just love their minivans. Forget your bedroom, this is the place to get a little action. Click on contributing mamas to read more.

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