Trying to sell your home? - Page 2

[freespirited]

We tried selling our house last year from May to November. We had some calls but even fewer people actually saw it. It didn't sell. We were selling it ourselves and my realtor friend also brought a few clients. He thought the price was right. We knew everything we'd done to the house though, literally remodeled the entire thing including rewiring. We realized that we didn't have any real plans, just panicking because of the market and kind of wanting to get out, but at this point, we know our house is a great value and we are not even close to being upside-down, so we are now in the process of putting an egress window in the basement and finishing it, and my lovely in-laws are donating a brand-new 6-person patio set so we can finally start enjoying our large, private backyard. We've got sunflower seedlings and tomato seedling gorwing indoors right now and we are going to xeriscape parts of the yard, a brand new school is being built blocks away that my dd will attend in the fall and has a dual language immersion program she will be part of (it's a public school too). Our neighbors are now remodeling their homes thus improving the neighborhood, things are looking up, and we'd lose too much money of we moved now, and our mortgage is waaayy cheaper than renting, so we gave up trying to sell and are now excited to really make this little house work for us.

Of course, someone I know is now very interested in my house, thanks to Obama's 8k tax credit, but at this point we are going to hunker down and just keep improving our current home. If we sold it to her, we'd end up renting somewhere and spending way more and not having near the amenities we have right now with our 1/4 acre lot and blocks away from the new school and all. If you don't HAVE to sell, maybe you shouldn't. Interest rates are so low right now and banks are really working with people to get them more affordable mortgages.

[Rosehip]

Originally Posted by freespirited

If you don't HAVE to sell, maybe you shouldn't. Interest rates are so low right now and banks are really working with people to get them more affordable mortgages.

Alas, I have to sell. The kids & I have moved in w/my parents, as I'm getting divorced and am back in school. It's just a financial drain right now. Your situation sounds great! Have fun!

I would love to stay in my place - it's so beautiful, and the community is nice - if my life circumstances were different. Ah well, onward and upward! Hopefully today's open house is going well. I'm expecting a "second" visit (a woman coming back w/her husband) today, so that would be a good sign.

[AlmightyIsis]

Our house has been on the market since last Septemeber. We've done all the staging stuff and have to live here until it sells becaue my DH lost his job. I have 2 young boys (and we homeschool) and am 7 months pg. Tough to keep the house up. We've had 27 showings and one ridiculous offer that we couldn't afford to take.

[mirlee]

My parents had to move and their house has been on the market for a year. It will never sell. It is cheap too at around $37k. Problem is, there are others for the same price that are better and all are within walking distance to the house. It's not a bad house, but it does need some work.

[krankedyann]

Our house has been on the market for over a year. Not even a nibble. And we've dropped the price as low as we can absolutely go. It's a really nice house in a really nice neighborhood, too.

[soccermama]

We're gearing up to put ours on the market in May. We tried this once before, about two years ago, and it never sold and it was on the market for 6 months. Since then, we've done a few updates and plan on doing a few more in the next couple of months. And we'll be more flexible with our pricing this time and basically take whatever comes our way. We don't WANT to lose any money on the deal, but if we need to, we may have to.

[Pernillep]

We are working on getting ours ready to be put on the market.
Honestly, I don't have much hope. We bought in a transitional neighborhood which was supposed to be up and coming. Well with the economy it took a turn for the worse. We had a realtor come out and he pretty up front told us that it was unlikely we would even be able to get what we have outstanding on the mortgage. But we are still going to try. If we have to we will stay for another year or so but with kid #2 coming this summer we will really need more space and a safer neighborhood with better schools sooner rather than later.

[Hazelnut]

We sold ours, but I think we dragged it out by being on the higher end of reasonable asking price for a while last spring. We were still lower than other similar houses, but I wanted to start higher b/c we anticipated lowballers. However, I do think some people just look at the asking price and and don't want to make offers that much lower.

It was hard b/c we had interest but people can't get the loans in many instances, or can't sell their houses. We had positive feedback from realtor openhouses and supposedly three people wanting to buy it....but they couldn't sell their house. So few sold in our neighborhood, which was considered desirable. I know you know this, it's just frustrating, when you can't polish, declutter, or show it any more.

Just make sure you have a realtor who is really, really going to work the best for you. Speaking from experience there. Also, I think we gave off a front of not needing to sell as bad as some do, once we got an offer. We got a lowball offer, but we got it up quite a bit. He was a realy harda$$ and I think he was gunning for a ridiculously low price in this market. I know everyone wants to pay as little as possible, but it can get borderline masochistic if you ask me.

Just don't ask me how many times I said to myself, "we are going to sell our house. we are even going to have two offers, to ensure the price stays high. our house is selling now." We nearly got two offers, not quite though. yes i was desperate!

[Rosehip]

How are the other sellers doing? I've had what seems to be a lot of interest - 28 visits @ open houses, and I think about 9 private appointments. There have been at least 2 repeat visits. There's a couple who seems seriously interested who is coming for a second visit tonight. They've been asking the agent a lot of questions...I'm going to put some bread in the breadmaker so it smells homey when they come tonight.

Boy, I really hope I get an offer. It's been on the market going on 3 weeks. If I don't have bids after a month, I figure I'll drop the price by about 6 or 7%.

This is so stressful.

[2cutiekitties]

Originally Posted by AlmightyIsis

We've had 27 showings and one ridiculous offer that we couldn't afford to take.

That is the problem I am having. We were to put our home up in April, but we bought our house for 148K 9 years ago, put 20K into it and people think they should buy our house for 100K because the market sucks.

And then the guy down the street listed his for 154K. He doesnt put a dime into his house, needs ridiculous amounts of work, but then everyone compares our extremely well cared for house with his!!!!

I am just frustrated everything wants something for nothing now.

My mother worked at a dealership and said people would walk in and offer 10K for a Tahoe and then appalled when they wouldnt take it. Some actually said they were doing them favors because the economy was bad : --- and this was a year ago, can you imagine the attitude today

[Hazelnut]

it is very obnoxious. In some cases it won't get them anywhere. In other cases, some people are really getting what they ask, or at least getting people to work with them, b/c they can just go elsewhere, there are so many on the market. I would have blown off the lowballer if we had even anotehr reasonable offer. So many comps are BS. I just stated the reasons why they aren't comparable at all. Our realtor said they were really getting some ridiculous attitudes from people. OTOH, there were some people in our neighborhood still pricing soooo high.

[Rosehip]

Hi all! I just wanted to let you know that there is some light at the end of the real estate tunnel! I put my apartment on the market at the very end of February, and the buyers signed the contract last night! Now I just have to sign. I got a bit nervous b/c they've had the contract for 2.5 weeks, so I said that I was going to schedule another open house, and I guess that lit a fire, and here we are. It's such a relief.

I bought in 2006, and am taking a loss (getting less than what I paid plus what I put into it), but will still get money out It's definitely down from the peak, but the important thing is it's getting sold, and I'm getting out from underneath the carrying costs!

My tips (who knows what if any of these actually did the trick, but this is what I did):

-Had bread baking during showings/open houses. My mom bought a bread machine specifically for this purpose when she had her house on the market. If not enough time to bake bread, I baked the store-bought cinnamon rolls. Smelled great! I also had fresh baked treats ready for showings & open houses when possible
-Turned on every light (including closets) before every showing)
-Had a lot of open houses (3 in 5 weeks of active selling)
-Staged the furniture - I moved it around so it looked it's best, not actually how I used it. For instance, I set up an office in a sunroom. That's not how I used it, but it was the perfect size, looked nice, and would give buyers ideas about how they might use it
-Got rid of everything. There was no clutter. The kids got good at putting their toys back in the bins
-Zero personal stuff (family photos, calendars, etc. no indication of who lived there, including taking down an image of the Blessed Mother)
-I was extremely accommodating of appointments. We would clear out on 20 minutes notice.
-Priced competitively. I'm sure this is key. I totally let go of the idea that I'd get what I could have gotten a year or two ago. I priced it to sell. I actually got more than I thought I'd have to settle for, which is nice.

Good luck to everyone else!