House is for sale - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Cindy T · RV-Dreams Family Member

House is for sale

Bill Adams · RV-Dreams Family Member

And you didn't post the link?
Come on! The more the links the better!

Cindy T · RV-Dreams Family Member

You know, I didn't even look at the actual online listing. The realtor sent me the pics she's going to use & the verbiage to describe it & I didn't go any further than that!

Cindy T

RVRon · RV-Dreams Family Member

Good for you Cindy... hope it sells fast! I hope we feel just as "weird" when ours finally goes up for sale. If we could only clean out all of the junk we've accumulated over the years quicker we'd get the sign up quicker!

Cindy T · RV-Dreams Family Member

Ron,

We had a yard sale & got rid of quite a bit but we still have a lot of stuff. We decided that we just couldn't wait until we went thru & got rid of everything, otherwise we would piddle around & never get the sign up! So we're still going thru stuff & throwing out/giving away/donating. Seems like that will never end!

Cindy T

RVRon · RV-Dreams Family Member

That's a great idea, Cindy! We have a garage and one spare bedroom FULL of "stuff" to go through yet. Once we get that far we could probably hide the rest of the crap in the attic or somewhere to make the house decent enough to put up for sale. Sounds like a lot more realistic goal than getting it 100% ready. Thanks!

-- Edited by RVRon on Saturday 18th of June 2011 06:59:02 PM

Cindy T · RV-Dreams Family Member

Ron, that has been our attitude. We decided to get enough cleaned out that the house looks spacious and not cluttered. We consolidated the stuff into one area of the basement that we're still going through. We also have a lot of stuff in the garage. But the living space of the house is now uncluttered, & personal photos, awards, things like that have been put away. We took small appliances off the kitchen counter & put them in cupboards. It's not as convenient for living, of course, but if someone wants to see it on short notice we're pretty well set. Now how long we can keep it looking this good remains to be seen!!

Cindy T

Steve C · RV-Dreams Family Member

Congrats!! We have had our home on the market for almost two months. It is a pain keeping everything so neat. Mow the yard before every showing whether it needs it or not. Have a lot of hits on the internet but only three potential buyers have come to see it.

Within the past few days we have gotten our first offer. Couple came and looked four times before making their offer. They have been looking for a year. Their offer was $49,500 below our appraisal backed asking price. Wanted most of our like new furniture for $2,500. Said their offer was based on Craig's List. We paid around $25,000 for the furniture about eighteen months ago. We felt insulted. They have come up only $10,000 and I counter at $7,250 less than asking price. At a stand still right now, still far apart.

The real estate market is unlike any that I have ever experienced. Have bought and sold almost twenty homes over the past 40+ years.

Good luck!!

Steve

Cindy T · RV-Dreams Family Member

Steve,

You're so right - this market isn't like anything I've ever experienced. I'm trying not to get too emotional about it, as I think it can be a roller coaster of hope vs disappointment. Just taking it 1 day at a time.

Cindy T

RVPAINTER · RV-Dreams Family Member

My house has been on the market for 4 months now. In this economy the potential buyers are for the most part what I call Bottom Feeders trying to buy a house for the least possible $'s regardless of the value. They for some reason think every home on the market is days or hours away from Foreclosure and tghey will save you from that! A very nasty little group of people. Reminds me of the animal kingdom where parents eat the young instead of hunting for food. A strange world we live in.
Cindy - i wish you luck in not getting emotional - hard to do - as you can see, I've FAILED! Wish you the best.

Cindy T · RV-Dreams Family Member

RV PAINTER, yes, I'm trying not to be too emotional but that is a challenge!

Cindy T

Ckerr · RV-Dreams Family Member

Good luck to all of you with the sale of your houses! As a Realtor you can only imagine how frustrating it is. While you are each only trying to sell one house, I'm trying to get several sold. We can thank the national news media for the "bottom feeder" mentality out there. They continually promote the notion that every house is moments away from foreclosure and that you can buy any house for pennies on the dollar. Working with both buyers and sellers today is more challenging than at any time in the past. I'm continually trying to explain to buyers that what they see on the morning news doesn't apply in every case and that they need to make a REASONABLE offer on the house they would like to purchase. I'm all for them getting a great deal, but the transaction should not be so adversarial and insulting to sellers! And then I get to explain to sellers that the offer wasn't meant to be insulting and that they shouldn't take it personally... It's just a reflection of a media promoted frenzy.

Once you agree on a deal, unless it's a cash buyer, you get to sweat out the financing process. Those lenders are listening to the same silly crap on the morning news and seem to think every offer on a house is too high! Let the appraisal wars begin...

I don't mean to be discouraging. Just want you to know we're all frustrated and to be patient. There are some good things happening out there.

Cindy T · RV-Dreams Family Member

Carol,

I have no doubt that things aren't rosy for realtors either. We've known our realtor for many years & she was always a top performer, but things are really different for her now. We all do have to be patient & try to look at this as business, rather than a personal insult. (Hey someone needs to remind me of this when I get a really lowball offer & get totally insulted!)

Cindy T

RVPAINTER · RV-Dreams Family Member

unfortunately the news media pretty much controls this country! They can put a bad spin on pretty much anything they want and the public buys it. Cash buyers are part of the bottom feeders as well . They think Cash gives them big discounts - other than perhaps no appraisal, the seller gets cash regardless. Three weeks after putting our house on the market with an appraised value, a Cash buer put in a bit for $80,000 less than the listed price. Talk about insults - IMHO their broker should never have submitted the bid. We told them to go back to NH and leave us alone!
The worst buyer is the oldeer generation 1. they have cash and 2. they think the recession gives them the right to steal. Most of them have a mind set whereby they still think a loaf of bread costs 17 cents. Anyone who sells their house in this economy at a FAIR price is very fortunate. You could not pay me to be a RE Broker - my hat is off to most of them.

NorCal Dan · RV-Dreams Family Member

Unfortunately it is a buyers market, and yes, cash is king. Cash buyers are driving the bus. Until lenders start lending again the cash buyer holds all the cards. The appraisers and realtors are stuck in the middle. It doesn't help when buyers are upside down and looking at a short sale, reminds me of sharks during a feeding frenzy. No end in sight out here in California, the sharks are still circling...

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

OK. Now I'm going to have to chime in here. Jo and I spent 3 years getting our house sold so we could move into the coach full-time. We still won't get to travel for a few years because we are waiting for our retirements to come around.

But, I do want you all to try to stay optimistic about your prospects. Believe it or not, we went most of those 3 years with a lovely and talented (and very caring) realtor that we have used twice before. We finally went the avenue of "For Sale By Owner" just so we could lower the price as much as possible. (Trying to cut out realtor commissions.) We even told those that looked at the house that IF they did not go with a realtor of their own, we could lower the price even more. (Our price included 3% commission for a buyer's realtor.)

Jo got online and found a realtor here in Oklahoma City that, for a flat fee of $239, would list our house on the MLS. AND, if we chose to use him to handle the paper work and deal with the title company, he would charge us a flat fee of $1500.

As it was, we ended up with an interested party where she was a licensed realtor (although not working as such) and could handle all the paper work and deal with the title company. So, we had no commissions at all to pay.

But, they were in a position of only being able to borrow enough (from FHA) to come within $4000 of our mortgage payoff price. We took the $4000 loss because we figured that within just a few months of NOT paying a mortgage, we could make that up.

The whole point of this is to say to not give up, NOT GET DISCOURAGED, and be prepared for any offers. Oklahoma City's real estate market is not as bad as national news paints it, but it still took us longer than we wished.

Don't get me started on the media. I seldom watch any except the local news and weather. I get the rest of my news via the "alternative media", meaning talk radio and internet. With those two sources, I can then search out to see if other "outlets" are saying the same thing.

Stay positive folks. Our home was not an inexpensive one, being over $200,000 in the Oklahoma City market, but it was in the price range at which fewer buyers were looking. If we can get it done, so can all of you.

Terry

Bill Adams · RV-Dreams Family Member

As long as your house is being valued by the 10 foreclosures in the surrounding area, the buyers are going to be able to buy whatever they want at whatever price they are willing to pay. There is such a glut of houses on the market (forced sale or voluntary) that only those willing to sell as the lower "going rate" are going to make a sale. The good news (in most cases) is that the seller has the final say. If you don't like the price, don't sell. The house WILL go up in value again with time (pick the time frame of your choice but don't pick one which includes the next 10 years). Banks lent money to too many under qualified buyers, the buyers made over-valued bids for under-valued homes (bidding wars), the banks sold principle free loans, the banks made bets that these loan would fail, builders built homes where no buyers existed and on and on.
It's the perfect doomsday scenario and it finally bit us all in the butt. Just because your home was once incorrectly valued at $500,000 does not mean it was ever truly worth that much. If you paid $250,000 for your house 10 years ago it should be worth around $336,000 at a 3% annual rate or 452,00 if you have owned it for 20 years. During those times there have likely been some recessions so you could not expect to get the full 3% return every year. During the housing run up, houses were increasing in value as much as 25% per year. This was based upon.....nothing....and the banks kept giving money to buyer who did not qualify and giving more money to the lender than the house was really worth (unless this nonsense continued).
Today, approx. 80% of all homeowners in the Las Vegas area who have a mortgage are "upside-down". It going to take 10-20 years for this situation to resolve itself. I am seriously considering buying a home in today's market except for the fact that I don't think we are anywhere near the bottom.
Good luck to all but don't hold out for the price you wish, you have to take a look at reality and see what homes in your area are selling for an be prepared to meet or beat those prices.

RVKevi · RV-Dreams Family Member

Wow! This thread makes me realize how fortunate we were! We sold our house, closing less than 5 months after listing. We got our asking price, although we did pay some of the buyer's closing costs. I know our agent felt we were asking too much, but was willing to wait it out with us and not pressure us to lower our price.

Good luck to those of you who have your house on the market now! I hope you will quickly have good offers from qualified buyers!

RVPAINTER · RV-Dreams Family Member

Our decision is easy. We will keep our house on the market until November and then take it off until April of 2012 as Santa Fe NM closes down during the winter. In the meantime we have a drop dead figure that we WILL NOT go below as it would not make our RV dream possible. In the mean time these slimy bottom feeders can go feed on the young of someone else.
We have adopted the mind set that if the house sells - great - if not we will just wait until it does. If it were not for our RV dream, we could live here forever so no fire sale on our porperty.

Racerguy · RV-Dreams Family Member

Sometimes you have to get creative to get them sold for what you want.We too had a drop dead price and ended up doing an owner finance for one year with a sizable down.We just received our balloon payment from the buyer.Many things had to fall in place for this to work such as not owing on the house and having already bought our full time rig but this is just one example.

RVPAINTER · RV-Dreams Family Member

We (mostly my wife) believe things happen for a reason. Yes - some things that happen can not be explained but there is a reason. If our RV adventure is delayed or even taken away from us because of the RE market then there is a reason for that. Perhaps the Universe is protecting us from something. Our home is very well priced within the surrounding competition of our area - other than slimy bottom feeders, no one else is buying homes - so we shall wait and hold firm on our "Drop Dead" price.

Ckerr · RV-Dreams Family Member

Hang in there. There are some good folks out there buying houses. It just seems to take a lot longer to find them or for them to find you as the case may be.

Mmalenski · RV-Dreams Family Member

It took us over ahead to sell our house and we had to take a 7000.00 loss. I'm glad we did because it frees us from everything..good luck

Mmalenski · RV-Dreams Family Member

Sorry that should say it took us over a year

daNeesey · RV-Dreams Community Member

Whew...I probably don't want to read too much of this thread, with our house being emptied and and just on the market! To be honest, all we want is to be done with the mortgage.

Jake62 · RV-Dreams Family Member

Another option, which we're doing right now, is "renting" out your house. Yes, I know the drawbacks; however, if it doesn't place you in a severe "negative case-flow" situation, the "rental" market, especially in Arizona, is much stronger than the "sales" market. If you don't need the capital from the sale of your residence, you can certainly consider this option. I'm not saying it's the "best" solution, but certainly better than selling your property for substantially below what you believe your property's market value should bring. We may even hang-on to our property to someday move back into it; however, we'll evaluate the market in the summer of 2012 and re-evaluate placing it on the market for sale at that time. If not, we'll rent it another year and re-evaluate each year until the market comes back.

RVPAINTER · RV-Dreams Family Member

Unfortunately it's the equity in our home that gets us into an Rv out onto the road. It will sell - it is just going to take time and since we are committed, we'll just wait it out. If for some reason it never sells then we were not meant to be RV-ers - It's that simple.

laurly · RV-Dreams Family Member

Cindy, I was discouraged too. I had put my house on the market last July, 2010. It finally sold, and closed at the end of May, 2011. I got $15,000 less than what I owed, so had to borrow from my 401k to bridge the gap. Short sale would have dragged on, so that didn't happen. I'm just happy I'm out from underneath the mortgage, and am now using the extra funds to pay off George's truck. His house we'll put on the market soon. Hopefully it won't drag on too long! Good luck!!