House selling commiseration thread

[kokotg]

There are at least a few of us, right?

 

I thought the part where we frantically cleaned and fixed and painted everything in the house was bad, but it turns out the endless waiting in The Cleanest House in the World is worse.

 

We're hoping to move closer to friends and kid activities (and a bit farther away from DH's job, but not much, and we both figure it's his turn to drive!) and get a little extra space while we're at it. So I know we're very lucky in that we don't HAVE to move. But I really want to, and the uncertainty is making me crazy.

 

We'll have had the house listed for 2 weeks on Friday. The first 3 days we had 2 showings, and I was very encouraged. Then....nothing. Nothing at all over the weekend. But! We have a showing tomorrow! And then an open house on Sunday.

 

In related news, DH is a math teacher, and he just heard that a high school a bit closer to the area we want to move is looking for a calculus teacher. He'd love to teach calculus (it's the sort of gig math teachers don't give up once they have it, so there's not much chance of him getting to teach it at his current school anytime soon), and it kind of gives a ring of possible meant to be-edness to the whole thing. Maybe. Knock wood.

 

We sold one house before, 9 years ago, but that was in Boston at the height of the housing boom. We knew it wouldn't take long, and it didn't. Of course, I was 6 months pregnant then, moving to a different state, and dealing with a filthy tenant who didn't pay the rent, so that situation had its own stresses.

 

Okay! So who else? How's it going? Share your tales of woe or hopefulness! And does anyone want to buy a very cute 4 bedroom cape on a wooded acre at a great price an hour north of Atlanta? :D

[kokotg]

...and to top it all off, there's no one on the whole WTM board to commiserate with me! Wah!

 

I'll just talk to myself. I washed the dog beds in preparation for tomorrow's showing, so they won't smell like dog (the actual dogs will be in the car with me. Along with 2 of the cats. Good times). But, really, I'm running out of things to clean. This has never happened to me before.

[runmiarun]

We're trying to sell our house. Unfortunately, no one wants a fixer-upper, mid-century modern ranch near the beach. People want a completely, totally, looks-brand-new, mid-century modern ranch near the beach for pennies on the dollar. And we're asking below market value, below everything but foreclosure value. Just what we need to pay off the mortgage. New roof, new plumbing, new paint, garden, blueberry bushes, tile and carpet throughout, tree fort with attached slide and swings, 10x15 kitchen, low maintenance yard (small but fenced). I'm praying someone will want to buy it. We get tons of calls about people wanting to rent it but nobody wants to buy it. One guy called wanting to buy the tree fort (that wraps around the 100 year old water oak) and play equipment if we'd remove it for him.:confused:

[Mrs.MacGyver]

We are getting ready to put the house up fairly soon as well. I am not looking forward to it, but we are getting to be pros at having the house ready to show at a moments notice. Just hoping that we sell it fast!!

[Happy]

I'm an agent and I just want to encourage you to keep on keeping on...Y'all sound like the kind of clients I love to have...willing, eager, and able to keep a place shining clean. It's tough!

 

It's early in the buying season yet. Lots of folks are putting their homes on the market, but the buyers are still lagging because it's March, ya know? April, May, and June are coming!

 

The market in my area (Fort Worth) is heating up. I'm sending hopeful and happy thoughts your way for your market and your sales.

[beaners]

We have someone coming out to start the listing process on Friday. We are already under contract for our house in Ohio. I'm fairly annoyed and we aren't even really started. We waited to list the house because a guy that works with my husband was swearing up and down that he wanted to buy it. He rescheduled twice, and then decided it would be too expensive to fence our entire yard. If that was even a consideration we could have given him the lot dimensions beforehand.

 

So now my husband leaves on Monday for 10 days, during which I have to continue boxing things up and get them out of the house, while watching our 3 children (4 and under) while I am pregnant enough that my stomach gets in the way of carrying things. Awesome. At this point a storage facility or container for a month may be more expensive than paying for this house for an extra month. I'm hoping we can move the closing up a week or two and just show this house after we are out of it. (Bonus for that is I would get to go to the Cincinnati convention.)

 

Oh, and did I mention my daughter found a bottle of bright pink nail polish and did everyone's nails, plus the beige carpet and white window pane this morning? I don't do my nails and didn't even know we had nail polish in the house. Yeah, this is going to be super fun.

[ma23peas]

Hi, my name is ma23peas and I am a former commiserator of the house selling blues...we carried two mortgages for 31 months, everything was tested, I achieved expert level on the Pollyanna Glad game, and learned how to play hardball on contract negotiations in a tenuous market...I pray we will never be in that situation again. :grouphug: to all of you carrying the torch forward!

[mom2abcd]

Anyone here selling a house in Milwaukee/Cedarburg, Wisconsin?

Edited March 10, 2012 by mom2abcd

[Blessedchaos]

We listed our house for sale one week ago today. Today we had our 7th showing and tomorrow evening we have our 8th. I'm thankful we have had so much traffic, but so far no takers. Even though we comped very carefully, the two feedback we've received indicates the buyers think we are priced a little high, so we may drop $10K within the next few weeks - we are just hesitant to do so too early and make buyers think something is wrong. Other comments were that our backyard view is distracting (we back to a house and their side driveway, then partially to a very quiet cul-de-sac with nice homes. I suppose the three cars in our back neighbor's driveway doesn't help, but we have tons of mature trees that block much of that in the summer). Our neighbor (similar house) is a short sale and just dropped his price $10K lower than us two days ago.

 

I am overwhelmingly stressed and like you, OP, I keep my house looking immaculate for showings. It's very hard to live like this. We are already building our house (will close mid to late June), and I just want this place SOLD!

[Dawn in Ohio]

We put our house on the market a week and a half ago. We've only had one showing so far, which makes me nervous. What makes me even more nervous is that we are going to close on our new house in 60 days. We didn't plan to have two houses at once, but we found an almost perfect house that we couldn't pass up. I hope everything works out. Fortunately we have room to drop our price if necessary.

 

If you have any advice about my house pictures and staging, I'd love to hear it.

 

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1460-W-Market-St_Akron_OH_44313_M34796-61997

[kokotg]

Yay! Commiseration!

 

We're trying to sell our house. Unfortunately, no one wants a fixer-upper, mid-century modern ranch near the beach.

 

A mid-century modern ranch is one of my favorite styles! If I could pick any house, I'd want a big, bright, rambling ranch. Sadly, almost nothing was built in the area where we're looking (nothing that's still standing anyway) until the late 70's.

 

I'm an agent and I just want to encourage you to keep on keeping on...Y'all sound like the kind of clients I love to have...willing, eager, and able to keep a place shining clean. It's tough!

 

It's early in the buying season yet. Lots of folks are putting their homes on the market, but the buyers are still lagging because it's March, ya know? April, May, and June are coming!

 

The market in my area (Fort Worth) is heating up. I'm sending hopeful and happy thoughts your way for your market and your sales.

 

Thanks for the encouragement :)

 

Oh, and did I mention my daughter found a bottle of bright pink nail polish and did everyone's nails, plus the beige carpet and white window pane this morning? I don't do my nails and didn't even know we had nail polish in the house. Yeah, this is going to be super fun.

 

Ugh! We had new carpet put in right before we listed our house (I'm trying not to spend too much time thinking about how I just spent the equivalent of a Disney vacation on new carpet, when I HATE carpet), and I'm so paranoid about it. No animals or food or shoes are allowed on any of it (fortunately we have laminate in 3 rooms, so we can still relax a little in those). I'm reasonably sure we don't have any nail polish in this house, but your story is making me want to go through every drawer and double check!

 

We listed our house for sale one week ago today. Today we had our 7th showing and tomorrow evening we have our 8th. I'm thankful we have had so much traffic, but so far no takers. Even though we comped very carefully, the two feedback we've received indicates the buyers think we are priced a little high, so we may drop $10K within the next few weeks - we are just hesitant to do so too early and make buyers think something is wrong. Other comments were that our backyard view is distracting (we back to a house and their side driveway, then partially to a very quiet cul-de-sac with nice homes. I suppose the three cars in our back neighbor's driveway doesn't help, but we have tons of mature trees that block much of that in the summer). Our neighbor (similar house) is a short sale and just dropped his price $10K lower than us two days ago.

 

I am overwhelmingly stressed and like you, OP, I keep my house looking immaculate for showings. It's very hard to live like this. We are already building our house (will close mid to late June), and I just want this place SOLD!

 

So many showings! That has to be good anyway, right?

 

Pricing is so tricky. I really felt like, if anything, we were a little low...until no one much showed up to look. But we really don't have many comps, so it's hard to say. Still...if people want this school district (which is a good one), this price range, and a little bit of land, they really don't have much else to pick from. So I guess we just have to wait for the person who doesn't want shiny new construction on a .2 acre lot.

 

We put our house on the market a week and a half ago. We've only had one showing so far, which makes me nervous. What makes me even more nervous is that we are going to close on our new house in 60 days. We didn't plan to have two houses at once, but we found an almost perfect house that we couldn't pass up. I hope everything works out. Fortunately we have room to drop our price if necessary.

 

If you have any advice about my house pictures and staging, I'd love to hear it.

 

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1460-W-Market-St_Akron_OH_44313_M34796-61997

 

 

ooh! It's nice...I love your dining room table (though I'm guessing that doesn't come with the house ;)). It all looks good to me--it's a lot like what we're looking for, in fact...except in the wrong state. The only thing that jumped out at me is maybe moving that chair in the corner to draw more attention to the fireplace. Good luck!

 

Here's our listing, by the way (I debated the whole internet privacy thing, but it's already all over the internet, so I don't think it matters!)

 

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/nat/reb/2875384587.html

[CalicoKat]

Our house has been on the market since August 2011. LOTS of showings but no offers.

 

Fortunately we moved out and are renting in the area we wanted to be so I don't have the "fire drills" to get everything cleaned up in a hurry.

[JessReplanted]

So, I think I may win this game - we've been trying to sell our house for 4 years!

 

In the meantime, we moved an hour away, and we have been living in other people's houses (one that was empty that someone was trying to sell, and the current one which was being flipped - and is still not completely flipped).

 

It has been exhausting. :tongue_smilie:

[Dawn in Ohio]

 

Here's our listing, by the way (I debated the whole internet privacy thing, but it's already all over the internet, so I don't think it matters!)

 

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/nat/reb/2875384587.html

 

Oh, thanks for posting your house listing. (I'm a little addicted to looking at house listings.) Your kitchen color is very similar to mine-- love it! And what a gorgeous lot with so much privacy.

 

My only suggestion would be to add something decorative on the kitchen table, on the coffee table, and maybe on the kitchen counter. You have done an amazing job of decluttering, but one decorative item can look good. Like a candle, a fancy platter, or a bowl of fruit.

 

Good luck!

[elise1mds]

We're about to join the ranks of the house-selling, too. We had the realtor out on Monday to give the place the once-over and tell us what remains to be done. It's not a horribly long list, but one of the things is painting the kitchen, which I was *really* hoping to avoid. We also have to paint the exterior of the house, which isn't likely to happen in March in Oklahoma. I am just fervently hoping that it will sell quickly once it hits the market - we have a lot of animals as well as the kids and HS stuff, so it's going to be a nightmare to keep it constantly clean.... YOU all understand this!

[JennifersLost]

I can commiserate with you!

 

We have a commercial property (rentals) for sale, and we just found a house we're interested in. If we were to buy that we'd have to sell our current house, as well. Top that off with the fact that one of our rental houses just unexpectedly went empty and requires a full renovation....and that another rental house will need to be renovated from top to bottom next month.

 

Here are all the things that might happen:

 

We could sell the rentals, not have to renovate anything and stay in our house.

 

We could sell the rentals, not do renos, and buy a new house and move.

 

We could do one rental, not the other, sell the rentals and move nowhere.

 

Ditto, but have to reno both rentals first.

 

We could reno two rentals, sell nothing and move nowhere.

 

We could move but keep the rentals.

 

We could sell a partnership in the rentals and either move or not move.

 

Or....wait for it....we could sell our house, reno the rentals and move into one of the rentals!

 

Today an interested buyer for the rentals made an offer....and then his financing fell through. He's off to other banks, leaving us to wait some more.....

 

Meanwhile the house we're interested in could easily be sold before we're even ready to buy. It's hard to face moving house before we know what's happening with the rentals.

 

BLEAH!!!!! Wake me up when it's all over.

[PrincessMommy]

...and to top it all off, there's no one on the whole WTM board to commiserate with me! Wah!

 

I'll just talk to myself. I washed the dog beds in preparation for tomorrow's showing, so they won't smell like dog (the actual dogs will be in the car with me. Along with 2 of the cats. Good times). But, really, I'm running out of things to clean. This has never happened to me before.

 

No, you're not alone. :grouphug: I've been gone almost all day at our old house we're trying to get ready to put on the market. It has been an ordeal.

 

We moved for similar reasons. We'd been in our old house for 19yrs and our youngest son really didn't have a lot of neighborhood friends. Since his siblings are all older than him, he was quite lonely. We hope that moving to a more traditional neighborhood with a pool and playgrounds and lots of kids will help. Of course, it isn't a guarantee.. The old neighborhood was more spread out with fewer houses and older. We also had an inground pool I am SO happy to be rid of.

 

I've been dealing with a lot of emotional issues over the move. Like you, we didn't *have* to move, we chose. Now I feel so guilty. I could have put up with the house for another 5-10 yrs (even though I've always disliked the house & pool) but I just had to go and get selfish and move into a pretty house. Anyway, that's what my mind tells me at 3am. Then I worry about my son really making any friends and wonder if I've made the worst mistake of my life! It's rather pathetic.

 

Right now we're trying to get the old house ready to go on the market. We owned the house out-right (15yr mortgages are a wonderful thing) so we'll be okay if it takes a bit of time. But, my realtor wants to turn our Ford house into a Cadillac house. She wanted us to spend 75K to get the house ready. Is she insane??! I think I'm going to come in under 20K as there really were some glaring problems that needed addressing. oh and then a week after we moved out the HVAC died. :glare: And then we had a pre-sale home inspection and discovered a crack down our chimney. :glare::glare: One of the bad things about living in a home for nearly 20 yrs is you really do live with a lot of problems without paying attention to them. Sigh. It makes me feel bad for not being a better home owner, which then adds to my guilt about ripping my son away from the old neighborhood (even though there weren't really a lot of friends, etc. etc.).

 

Oh my tale of woe. Sorry to bore you with it. But, that's what I'm dealing with on a move. I thought it was going to be an exciting adventure. But there's been a lot more angst than I ever thought I'd have.

[ThisIsTheDay]

If you have any advice about my house pictures and staging, I'd love to hear it.

 

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1460-W-Market-St_Akron_OH_44313_M34796-61997

 

I thought it looked great. Since you are asking for advice, I would consider removing the large area rug in the entry. It's too large for the room, and it's a bit overwhelming as a first view inside the house. If you have a decent view, be sure to leave all the bedroom curtains open (thinking of the picture of the bedroom with the blue/green spread)! And if your dh is handy, you might discuss with your realtor the possibility of painting the first floor rooms a more neutral color.

 

It's so stressful to have your house up for sale! I hope things move quickly for all of you!

[indigomama]

We put our house on the market a week and a half ago. We've only had one showing so far, which makes me nervous. What makes me even more nervous is that we are going to close on our new house in 60 days. We didn't plan to have two houses at once, but we found an almost perfect house that we couldn't pass up. I hope everything works out. Fortunately we have room to drop our price if necessary.

 

If you have any advice about my house pictures and staging, I'd love to hear it.

 

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1460-W-Market-St_Akron_OH_44313_M34796-61997

 

 

I think your house looks great. Clean and simple. When I look at houses, I either want them empty or like yours, easy for me to see what size furniture fits in a room but without a lot of distractions.

 

To everyone selling, may it go smoothly and quickly.

 

We are hoping to move in the near future (need the job first) and I am terrified of getting my house ready to sell, not to mention the fact that my town seems swamped with short sales and our value has really dropped in 3 years.

[runmiarun]

[quote name=

 

Right now we're trying to get the old house ready to go on the market. But' date=' my realtor wants to turn our Ford house into a Cadillac house. She wanted us to spend 75K to get the house ready. Is she insane??! I think I'm going to come in under 20K as there really were some glaring problems that needed addressing. oh and then a week after we moved out the HVAC died. :glare: And then we had a pre-sale home inspection and discovered a crack down our chimney. :glare::glare: One of the bad things about living in a home for nearly 20 yrs is you really do live with a lot of problems without paying attention to them. Sigh. It makes me feel bad for not being a better home owner, which then adds to my guilt about ripping my son away from the old neighborhood (even though there weren't really a lot of friends, etc. etc.).

 

[/quote]

 

I feel your pain as quoted above. We lived in our last house for 5 years and bought it intending to fix it up. Two years into owning it, DH lost his job so we went into survival mode, which meant no working on the house other than repairs to keep it habitable. We lived with a lot of problems that we now have to possibly deal with and I'm dreading it. We still don't have much money to put into it so we're praying for someone willing to buy it "as-is" or as a fixer-upper. I wish I'd had more energy to do many of the inexpensive fixes but having 3 more children during the 5 years we owned it limited my abilities to do more than duct tape the problems. Add hubby working 80+ hours a week for min wage and we're stuck. Thankfully, our realtor is willing to work with us on getting it ready to sell as we can afford it rather than dropping serious money to get more work done.

 

Here's hoping all of us that need/want our houses to sell get nice, workable contracts this spring.

[Saille]

My dh moved to Indiana to start his new job several weeks ago. We had a FSBO listing up for a couple of weeks while I was packing and staging, just to gauge interest, but ended up going with a realtor. The listing is here: http://www.assist2sellcny.com/Web/AR288786/ListingSearch/details/?mls_id=NY-GURBR&mls_no=1200601&display_page=2&lpp=20&index=18&total_listings=94&from=results

 

Most of our earthly belongings are in a locked rental POD on our driveway. I keep taking the dog to work with me in the car so we don't miss out on a showing, and the kids are at the tutoring center with me 10-12 hours a week. I have staging stuff I don't even get out until the kids are in the car (new towels, tablecloth, etc.) I just need one family that wants land and isn't freaked out by an unfinished room on the back of the house.

 

Am so tired.

 

Fingers crossed for everybody's listings!

[beaners]

I think all the houses look lovely!

 

I just need one family that wants land and isn't freaked out by an unfinished room on the back of the house.

 

 

In our search for new houses, we've found that FHA won't insure anything with exposed studs outside of a basement for their traditional mortgages. They will through their 203K loans, which combine the repair costs and the sale price into one mortgage. Unfortunately that's quite a bit more hassle than most people want to deal with.

 

Our house will almost definitely be sold for a rental or with an FHA mortgage, so we have been paying fanatical attention to the details they will check during the appraisal. They "cheated" on a few things during the appraisal when we bought the house, which we didn't know about until we found we would need to take care of them to sell.

[Saille]

It's not really like that. The house is completely functional without the room. In the days of coal heat, it's where they kept the coal. On paper, it counts as storage/attic space, and we had no troubles with our mortgage, nor did the previous owner. We were going to reno it into a master bedroom this summer, but were going to do most of the work ourselves. With my husband already gone, it's just not reasonable.

[kokotg]

 

My only suggestion would be to add something decorative on the kitchen table, on the coffee table, and maybe on the kitchen counter. You have done an amazing job of decluttering, but one decorative item can look good. Like a candle, a fancy platter, or a bowl of fruit.

 

Good luck!

 

Thanks--good suggestion! It's true--I may have gone a little overboard in my attempt to make the house look like no one actually lives here :D

 

We're about to join the ranks of the house-selling, too. We had the realtor out on Monday to give the place the once-over and tell us what remains to be done. It's not a horribly long list, but one of the things is painting the kitchen, which I was *really* hoping to avoid. We also have to paint the exterior of the house, which isn't likely to happen in March in Oklahoma. I am just fervently hoping that it will sell quickly once it hits the market - we have a lot of animals as well as the kids and HS stuff, so it's going to be a nightmare to keep it constantly clean.... YOU all understand this!

 

Animals and kids! Our agent is really fixated on the cats and how they'll affect things...maybe because SHE'S allergic to cats so it's on her mind every time she's in our house. I've got the litterboxes in the basement and I crate up the two younger cats (I figure the older one will stay out of sight anyway) for showings and take them with me. They LOVE that, let me tell you ;). They get to be in the car for 3 hours on Sunday when we have our open house. I'm just really hoping it sells before it gets too hot to leave them in the car, because I'm not sure what I'll do then.

 

 

I've been dealing with a lot of emotional issues over the move. Like you, we didn't *have* to move, we chose. Now I feel so guilty. I could have put up with the house for another 5-10 yrs (even though I've always disliked the house & pool) but I just had to go and get selfish and move into a pretty house. Anyway, that's what my mind tells me at 3am. Then I worry about my son really making any friends and wonder if I've made the worst mistake of my life! It's rather pathetic.

 

Right now we're trying to get the old house ready to go on the market. We owned the house out-right (15yr mortgages are a wonderful thing) so we'll be okay if it takes a bit of time. But, my realtor wants to turn our Ford house into a Cadillac house. She wanted us to spend 75K to get the house ready. Is she insane??! I think I'm going to come in under 20K as there really were some glaring problems that needed addressing. oh and then a week after we moved out the HVAC died. :glare: And then we had a pre-sale home inspection and discovered a crack down our chimney. :glare::glare: One of the bad things about living in a home for nearly 20 yrs is you really do live with a lot of problems without paying attention to them. Sigh. It makes me feel bad for not being a better home owner, which then adds to my guilt about ripping my son away from the old neighborhood (even though there weren't really a lot of friends, etc. etc.).

 

Oh my tale of woe. Sorry to bore you with it. But, that's what I'm dealing with on a move. I thought it was going to be an exciting adventure. But there's been a lot more angst than I ever thought I'd have.

 

I remember reading your thread about the $75,000 she wants you to spend! Crazy!

 

yeah, we're 9 years into a 15 year mortgage here, and sometimes I think I'm a dummy for trading that in for a brand new 30 year mortgage (which will make our payments about the same as they are now, but on a much bigger house in a more expensive area). But I've been restless and wanting to move to a different area ever since we got here, so I don't think it's going to go away. And as the kids get older, they really want to be closer to friends. And I'd really like some extra space to spread out in, too! And it seems like, with prices and interest rates how they are, if we're going to move, now's really the most affordable time to do it.

[kokotg]

My dh moved to Indiana to start his new job several weeks ago. We had a FSBO listing up for a couple of weeks while I was packing and staging, just to gauge interest, but ended up going with a realtor. The listing is here: http://www.assist2sellcny.com/Web/AR288786/ListingSearch/details/?mls_id=NY-GURBR&mls_no=1200601&display_page=2&lpp=20&index=18&total_listings=94&from=results

 

Most of our earthly belongings are in a locked rental POD on our driveway. I keep taking the dog to work with me in the car so we don't miss out on a showing, and the kids are at the tutoring center with me 10-12 hours a week. I have staging stuff I don't even get out until the kids are in the car (new towels, tablecloth, etc.) I just need one family that wants land and isn't freaked out by an unfinished room on the back of the house.

 

Am so tired.

 

Fingers crossed for everybody's listings!

 

I love your house :)

 

I had big plans to pack up the dogs every time I left the house when we first listed it....but I gave up on that really quickly when I realized my fantasy about 5 showings a day wasn't going to come true!

[Saille]

I love your house :)

 

I had big plans to pack up the dogs every time I left the house when we first listed it....but I gave up on that really quickly when I realized my fantasy about 5 showings a day wasn't going to come true!

 

Aw, thanks! I love it, too. We're going to miss it. On the plus side, if winter decides to be over, we'll have flowers, asparagus and strawberries coming up...but I'd love to go sooner than that. This is the longest the kids have ever been away from their dad. We're supposed to go to Disney in a few months, and I don't relish doing the airport with three kids by myself...and, you know, our stuff is all packed up. I realized I packed up Classics in the Classroom, and I was so irritated! It's way at the back of the POD. I'll never get to it.

 

The main reason I take the dog is that Tuesday and Thursday evenings, much of Saturday, and most of Sunday we're not home. Those aren't situations I could leave to come get her. Maybe I'll slack off on that at some point...it's not like we're having that many showings right now. But I have this vision of some relo family calling for a last-minute showing and not being able to come at all if they can't come then. Dumb, I know.

[kokotg]

...and, you know, our stuff is all packed up. I realized I packed up Classics in the Classroom, and I was so irritated! It's way at the back of the POD. I'll never get to it.

 

 

One nice thing about the house selling process is that it's making me feel very justified in the absurd number of books we own. There have already been several times when we've wanted one book or another and realized it was already packed.

[PrincessMommy]

I feel your pain as quoted above. We lived in our last house for 5 years and bought it intending to fix it up. Two years into owning it, DH lost his job so we went into survival mode, which meant no working on the house other than repairs to keep it habitable. We lived with a lot of problems that we now have to possibly deal with and I'm dreading it. We still don't have much money to put into it so we're praying for someone willing to buy it "as-is" or as a fixer-upper. I wish I'd had more energy to do many of the inexpensive fixes but having 3 more children during the 5 years we owned it limited my abilities to do more than duct tape the problems. Add hubby working 80+ hours a week for min wage and we're stuck. Thankfully, our realtor is willing to work with us on getting it ready to sell as we can afford it rather than dropping serious money to get more work done.

 

Here's hoping all of us that need/want our houses to sell get nice, workable contracts this spring.

 

 

We moved into our old house when my 4th was 2months old. We had two more kids and continued to homeschool through the 19yrs there. Those were my full-time jobs. I totally hear you about having the energy to do the things needed to be done. I just wasn't there. I felt I was doing good if the house was relatively clean and the kids got some schooling done during the day. But, now that the house is empty and being fixed up I find myself saying "I can't believe we lived with that so long."

 

I hope everyone sells their house quickly. I'm glad this thread was started. It IS nice to know I'm not alone.

[Saille]

One nice thing about the house selling process is that it's making me feel very justified in the absurd number of books we own. There have already been several times when we've wanted one book or another and realized it was already packed.

 

Built-in bookshelves are the fastest way to get me to look at a house.

[kokotg]

Oh, also, I should mention that I had to give my chickens away in preparation for listing the house, and now I miss them :(

[Georgiana Daniels]

Two years and counting.

[Saille]

Oh, also, I should mention that I had to give my chickens away in preparation for listing the house, and now I miss them :(

 

Oh, I didn't realize! I'm so sorry! I keep looking at the hens, ducks, and now our beautiful pair of Bourbon Red turkeys, and wondering if I can possibly work a contingency sale so we can just transplant them...

[hana]

We're getting ready to list our house (already under contract for our new one in a different area), but it's hard to get motivated. We bought this house for $109,000 and have put about $20,000 into it. Now, the market in our area is so bad that we'll be lucky to sell it at all, and if we do, we won't likely get more than $30,000.

[Saille]

We're getting ready to list our house (already under contract for our new one in a different area), but it's hard to get motivated. We bought this house for $109,000 and have put about $20,000 into it. Now, the market in our area is so bad that we'll be lucky to sell it at all, and if we do, we won't likely get more than $30,000.

 

 

Oh, my goodness! You mean in equity, right, not the selling cost of the house?!

[kokotg]

Feedback from today's showing: they liked the house, but it's more expensive than the other nine houses they looked at. I'm not sure how they can keep nine house straight in their heads. But anyway. Assuming they're looking in a relatively small area (this zip code and/or this school district) there's really just almost NOTHING else out there in our price range on this kind of lot. They can look at maybe 2 other houses, and we compare very favorably with them, I think. I know what they were looking at....the subdivision a couple of miles away with hundreds and hundreds of newer houses on quarter acre lots. And we may lose out to that over and over, is what I'm afraid of.

[hana]

Oh, my goodness! You mean in equity, right, not the selling cost of the house?!

 

Nope. I live in Flint, MI. Houses here have really lost that much value. A house in my neighborhood that was purchased for 145,000 10 years ago just sold for 30,000. Thankfully, we had paid off our mortgage. I have a friend who owes at least twice as much as what her house is currently worth.

[Sahamamama]

...and to top it all off, there's no one on the whole WTM board to commiserate with me! Wah!

 

I'll just talk to myself. I washed the dog beds in preparation for tomorrow's showing, so they won't smell like dog (the actual dogs will be in the car with me. Along with 2 of the cats. Good times). But, really, I'm running out of things to clean. This has never happened to me before.

 

I have nothing to add to your thread, as we are under-water in our mortgage (and not going anywhere), but this part made me laugh. Thanks. :lol:

[Saille]

Nope. I live in Flint, MI. Houses here have really lost that much value. A house in my neighborhood that was purchased for 145,000 10 years ago just sold for 30,000. Thankfully, we had paid off our mortgage. I have a friend who owes at least twice as much as what her house is currently worth.

 

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

[PrincessMommy]

Oh, also, I should mention that I had to give my chickens away in preparation for listing the house, and now I miss them :(

 

I'm sorry. We had chickens at our old house too - although it has been nearly 10yrs. I was hoping to find a house where I could keep them again, but our new neighborhood has an HOA. Most neighborhoods in my county do unless you live with some acreage (which we didn't want).

 

Are you hoping to get more once you move?

[MistyMountain]

Our place was on the market for 10 months. It completely sucked and was very stressful. I was beginning to lose hope that it would even sell. We have 3 kids 5 and under in a 2 bedroom condo so keeping it show ready sucks. Hopefully the deal won't go through but we now have less than a month to find a short term rental that accepts pets in our price range and that is no easy task. I am ready for this to be over. I was hoping we would move once it sold but now dh got offered a job here. I hate the cost of living here. We can't really afford what we need. Rentals are more expensive and single families are out of our reach. I really wanted to have a yard for gardening. I wish our cost of living was as reasonable as Ohio. There is nothing in our price range that isn't a complete dump.

Edited March 9, 2012 by MistyMountain

[PrincessMommy]

Two years and counting.

 

Yikes!

[Dawn in Ohio]

So, I think I may win this game - we've been trying to sell our house for 4 years!

 

:grouphug: 4 years? Oh my, you win for sure.

 

I've been dealing with a lot of emotional issues over the move. Like you, we didn't *have* to move, we chose. Now I feel so guilty. I could have put up with the house for another 5-10 yrs (even though I've always disliked the house & pool) but I just had to go and get selfish and move into a pretty house. Anyway, that's what my mind tells me at 3am. Then I worry about my son really making any friends and wonder if I've made the worst mistake of my life! It's rather pathetic.

 

It is a very stressful time. The emotional issues are what I'm dealing with too. This move isn't a necessity for us. The main reason we are moving is to be closer to a private school for the kids. But in all other respects our present house meets our needs fine. And now we are going to have a nicer house than most of our friends and family. I don't think anyone understands or agrees with what we are doing. My mother in law has been very vocal about how we shouldn't have two mortgages at once. Ugh!

 

We're getting ready to list our house (already under contract for our new one in a different area), but it's hard to get motivated. We bought this house for $109,000 and have put about $20,000 into it. Now, the market in our area is so bad that we'll be lucky to sell it at all, and if we do, we won't likely get more than $30,000.

 

I'm sorry. :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: We are competing against lots of forclosures in our area, but that isn't nearly as bad as your situation.

[runmiarun]

Your house sounds like a dream to me. I've always wanted to live near a beach, and I love mid-century modern. Too bad we're stuck here.

 

Thanks! We really loved it and the Brady Bunch-ness of it. It looked like a tornado dropped it from California into coastal GA.

[runmiarun]

So, I think I may win this game - we've been trying to sell our house for 4 years!

 

In the meantime, we moved an hour away, and we have been living in other people's houses (one that was empty that someone was trying to sell, and the current one which was being flipped - and is still not completely flipped).

 

It has been exhausting. :tongue_smilie:

 

 

Ugh. I hope you have multiple offers this month.

[Blessedchaos]

Well, our price will drop today $10K from $189,900 to $179,850. We are only day 10 on the market and lots of showings (#8 last night) but no offers yet so this is based on the little bit of feedback we have received and just trying to be aggressive. I can't say I really understand the feedback as we were already priced less per square foot than any other house up for our price range and our home has been completely updated (we have spent over $35K doing this); now we are around $70 per square foot. However, we are a 4 bed, 2 bath, nearly 2,600 square foot rambler competing with 1,900 square foot 4 bed, 2 bath split entries in our area so on paper I'm not sure people understand that our house is significantly larger. Luckily our market is really picking up nicely and properties are selling. Not many foreclosures in our price range and only a few short sales (one is our neighbor priced the same as us with nearly the same house). I just want it sold TODAY! My goodness I can't even imagine being 10 months, 2 years, or more like this! If we don't sell by end of summer we will have to rent it out as we are due to close on our new house end of June. Luckily we own our current home outright, but it is still stressful.

[kokotg]

Well, our price will drop today $10K from $189,900 to $179,850. We are only day 10 on the market and lots of showings (#8 last night) but no offers yet so this is based on the little bit of feedback we have received and just trying to be aggressive. I can't say I really understand the feedback as we were already priced less per square foot than any other house up for our price range and our home has been completely updated (we have spent over $35K doing this); now we are around $70 per square foot. However, we are a 4 bed, 2 bath, nearly 2,600 square foot rambler competing with 1,900 square foot 4 bed, 2 bath split entries in our area so on paper I'm not sure people understand that our house is significantly larger. Luckily our market is really picking up nicely and properties are selling. Not many foreclosures in our price range and only a few short sales (one is our neighbor priced the same as us with nearly the same house). I just want it sold TODAY! My goodness I can't even imagine being 10 months, 2 years, or more like this! If we don't sell by end of summer we will have to rent it out as we are due to close on our new house end of June. Luckily we own our current home outright, but it is still stressful.

 

good luck!

 

I hear you...I'm ready to drop our price, like, yesterday just to be done with it! Even though I feel like I'll be doing it to price myself competitively with houses with the same square footage but a quarter of the land, no basement, one less bedroom, etc.

 

But then, I'm sure the people selling the houses we're looking at in our next town are thinking the same thing: "why on earth are people paying 10,000 more for a smaller house on a smaller lot, just because it's 10 years newer?!" And we'll be the beneficiaries on that end of things, so I guess it will all even out. Also took at a look at the sold prices of the very first houses we looked at, a couple of months ago, and I'm sort of pleasantly shocked at how low they went for. One house that we really loved (although it had some drawbacks) sold for $25,000 under the asking price (which had already been dropped over $50,000) AND $25,000 under our budget. So maybe we can drop what we think we need to get for this house a bit after all.

 

Of course, our agent is out of town this weekend, so nothing to do but sit tight and try not to think about it too much until she gets back!

Edited March 9, 2012 by kokotg

[kokotg]

Nope. I live in Flint, MI. Houses here have really lost that much value. A house in my neighborhood that was purchased for 145,000 10 years ago just sold for 30,000. Thankfully, we had paid off our mortgage. I have a friend who owes at least twice as much as what her house is currently worth.

 

:grouphug: I'm sorry, hana--that's terrible!

 

I have nothing to add to your thread, as we are under-water in our mortgage (and not going anywhere), but this part made me laugh. Thanks. :lol:

 

:D The cats are actually being remarkably good so far. Occasional meowing, but nothing worse. We'll see how they hold up Sunday for the three hour open house, though!

 

I'm sorry. We had chickens at our old house too - although it has been nearly 10yrs. I was hoping to find a house where I could keep them again, but our new neighborhood has an HOA. Most neighborhoods in my county do unless you live with some acreage (which we didn't want).

 

Are you hoping to get more once you move?

 

We're hoping to, but it depends where we wind up. One town we're looking at allows chickens; one doesn't. And then it depends on whether there's an HOA, too, of course. So chicken potential does make some houses more attractive to us, but it's not a deal breaker.

[Guest Whipperwhirl]

Hello - Mother to 3 kids age 12, 7 and 5 months - This is my first post on this forum. We have been working on our 12 year old house in Connecticut for 4 months so we can put it on the market. Hoping to list the end of this month.

 

We are selling off our house and getting rid of 98% of our posessions in the hopes to live a simplier life. Travel in our RV / roadschool in the summer and rent a house near family in the winter. The whole idea is to be lighter on our feet, put more money in the bank and have one parent (me) totally devoted to the kids and our "home". Instead of working for a house that really just sucks up our time, money and energy.

 

This is our first time selling a house and I have to say I had no idea how much work and money is involved. We also had a pre-sale inspection that had two "major" findings - between that, decluttering, depersonalizing and minor repairs we have sunk about 15K in so far - Just to get it listed.

 

We are fortunate that we arent underwater - but we were hoping to make some kind of profit - at this rate - I don't think thats going to happen.

 

I am fortunate that I have a family member who is a professional house stager - she has been making recomendations to us that should help us get this pig sold.

 

Good luck to all of you - this has got to be the toughest time ever to sell a house.

[PrincessMommy]

 

It is a very stressful time. The emotional issues are what I'm dealing with too. This move isn't a necessity for us. The main reason we are moving is to be closer to a private school for the kids. But in all other respects our present house meets our needs fine. And now we are going to have a nicer house than most of our friends and family. I don't think anyone understands or agrees with what we are doing. My mother in law has been very vocal about how we shouldn't have two mortgages at once. Ugh!

.

 

I know what you mean. I've grown up doing without and making do. Now we have a nicer house too and I feel SO guilty! It really wasn't our goal. We wanted more neighborhood kids, closer to many of our activities, smaller yard, and NO POOL.! LOL.

 

Is is this a woman thing that we can't do nice things for ourselves without feeling guilty?

[PrincessMommy]

Hello - Mother to 3 kids age 12, 7 and 5 months - This is my first post on this forum. We have been working on our 12 year old house in Connecticut for 4 months so we can put it on the market. Hoping to list the end of this month.

 

We are selling off our house and getting rid of 98% of our posessions in the hopes to live a simplier life. Travel in our RV / roadschool in the summer and rent a house near family in the winter. The whole idea is to be lighter on our feet, put more money in the bank and have one parent (me) totally devoted to the kids and our "home". Instead of working for a house that really just sucks up our time, money and energy.

 

This is our first time selling a house and I have to say I had no idea how much work and money is involved. We also had a pre-sale inspection that had two "major" findings - between that, decluttering, depersonalizing and minor repairs we have sunk about 15K in so far - Just to get it listed.

 

We are fortunate that we arent underwater - but we were hoping to make some kind of profit - at this rate - I don't think thats going to happen.

 

I am fortunate that I have a family member who is a professional house stager - she has been making recomendations to us that should help us get this pig sold.

 

Good luck to all of you - this has got to be the toughest time ever to sell a house.

 

Those pre-sale inspections are helpful, but they can also be so discouraging. I think we'll clock in around 15k too. I hope you get it on the market in time.

 

RVing...I always wanted to do that but my dh was never interested. His job wouldn't really lend itself to doing it either. I hope your dream comes true soon.