<p>^ DW found a client a condo once by putting a flyer in everyone’s mailbox asking if they were interested in selling.</p>
<p>You could do the same thing in the area you are interested in. It’s a low percentage play, but you have little to lose, and cutting out the agent might give you some play on price.</p>
<p>Sigh. So, since it wasn’t convenient for me today, now my wife and the buyers are asking me if tomorrow would be OK, instead. :)</p>
<p>She asked me what she should tell them now (face palm!) and I said, just tell 'em I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off making trips to the new place and trying to arrange a move so we can actually be out of the house before closing (after 23 years) and I don’t have any idea where I’m going to be tomorrow or when and this week just isn’t going to work. We’ll get back to them.</p>
<p>idad, you had been originally planning to email the list of things the buyers could have to your agent, for your agent to send on to the buyers. Maybe you could go ahead and email the list to the buyers now (cc your agent), saying you’re so sorry you’re running around like a chicken with your head cut off, but you don’t want to delay them further so you’re sending them the list via email for their review. This way you accomplish what you wanted to accomplish in the first place, and look like you’re accommodating them at the same time, and avoid the in person meeting.</p>
<p>That’s my plan. But, I am literally running around like a chicken with my head cut off. When we accepted their offer, I had less than four weeks to find a place, rent it, and get moved so we could be out by closing. So I’ve been pretty focused on stuff that had to happen immediately. Putting together a list of stuff that we would give to the new owners for free really hasn’t been at the top of my TO DO list. I didn’t rent a place until Saturday and I booked the mover yesterday (for next week). I’ve got the car loaded for a daily round trip to the new place. After dinner, I guess I’l put the packing on hold and go through the house putting together a list.</p>
<p>Can your wife make the list? :)</p>
<p>Idad. Ugh! How annoying. Just tell her you are too busy until closing. Does she have nothing to do? I guess it wouldn’t be good to call the real estate agent and have her call your wife and tell her what a bad idea this is. </p>
<p>Not being mean but it sounds like you are being put in a bad place and a no win situation.</p>
<p>“Another house a few streets over had a Sold sign up when I drove by yesterday.”</p>
<p>This got me thinking … when was the last time I saw a Sold sign? I decided to key an eye out. Forty miles driving around neighborhoods yesterday and today. Lots of For Sales signs, but no Sold signs yet.</p>
<p>dstark, the only feedback our agent gave us was after the brokers’ open house last Thursday. According to our agent (who, I think, is disappointed in our house :eek:), it’s “very spacious” and “needs work.”</p>
<p>IMHO, it doesn’t specifically need work – everything works, nothing is broken, nothing is flagrantly "as is " or “handyman’s special.” However, the bathrooms need to be updated and the closets are very 1967 – i.e., small with bright blue tile. If we were staying here and had a bunch of extra money, I’d expand the current master bath to include the current MBR closets, and take over one of our six bedrooms to be a walk-in closet. </p>
<p>Another showing tonight.</p>
<p>Ok…good luck…</p>
<p>Are you having a public open house?</p>
<p>Or is that frowned upon?</p>
<p>Ema. if you have an agent, sounds like they aren’t doing their job. They should be able to get the listings just as soon as they become available. I wonder if there is a really good local website for you. I dislike realtor.com, but we have a local one, NWrealestate.com, that usually has very current listings. I get the info from there, then input the MLS number into redfin.com, where I can find all the info on it. Plus, redfin.com updates it as soon as it is pending/sold. I can’t figure out how to do a good search on redfin, though, if I was just looking for current properties.</p>
<p>Not all shorts take forever, some are already pre-approved by the bank, and they want to get rid of them. REO’s should be quick.</p>
<p>VeryHappy–It’s a shame houses get “outdated” unless you update the decorating and even the layout every decade. What was state of the art 20 years ago is “your mother’s decorating” now. Even if everything WORKS, it’s not a walk-in closet with master bath in terrazzo or granite or whatever the rest of the neighborhood has. Or the new neighborhood 5 miles away…</p>
<p>dstark, we are not having a public open house. I don’t want one, and my realtor kind of agreed that they rarely sell houses. I also have a concern about having bunches of strangers troop through the house unsupervised.</p>
<p>I’ve already put my jewelry and some sterling in the trunk of my car so those don’t get lifted.</p>
<p>mommusic, our town has mostly McMansions with lots of tumbled marble tiles in the bathrooms and lots of closets and granite and space space space . . . Ours is a 1967 home with a new kitchen (well – we did it in 1999; we still get ooohs and ahhhhs over it), so it is what it is.</p>
<p>Oh – and the land sucks, too. Two acres, but three quarters of it is wetland. We keep pushing the “privacy” feature, but some people want to build volleyball courts and the like. Not possible here.</p>
<p>Anyway – the price has, IMO, taken all this into account.</p>
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<p>I second this. When we bought our present house in the sellers’ market 10-20 years ago, our agent showed us houses before they came on the market. Well-connected agents know houses before they go on the market.</p>
<p>Just saw a scrubby little house 1200 sf went into “pending”, it does not have a Kitchen, except two whats leftover cabinets. Two really out dated, gummy, moldy bathrooms. Its going to be sold for around 200K in a dinky town outside of the hart of Silicon Valley area(CC county). Had it been in Palo Alto, that house will be sold for well over $1M+, because it has a 7000 SQFT yard!</p>
<p>If we can move VH’s house(as she described) into Los Altos Hills, it would have been priced at about $10 Millon :)</p>
<p>artloversplus: I’ll get the trucks ready!! Even moving my house cross-country wouldn’t cost me $10 million!!</p>
<p>Oh wait – we’d need to buy the land, huh?</p>
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<p>IF you can find a 2 Acres of FLAT lot in LAH, it would have been around $10 million anyway, give and take. :)</p>
<p>Well, the official April home sales data are in for CT … 2,451 housing units sold, an increase of 4% from last year. At that sales rate, homes are sold an average of once every 51 years … based on the 2010 Census count of 1.49 million housing units in CT.</p>
<p>[Connecticut</a> Housing Sales Rise In April But Prices Flat | Real Estate](<a href=“http://courantblogs.com/ct-real-estate/connecticut-housing-sales-rise-in-april-but-prices-flat/]Connecticut”>Connecticut Housing Sales Rise In April But Prices Flat – Hartford Courant)</p>
<p>NewHope, thanks for that information. I’ve got my fingers crossed. I’m expecting some feedback today from our realtor, so I’ll see if there’s any “actionable” feedback. I suspect there will not be.</p>
<p>Have you gotten any feedback from the showings, VH?</p>
<p>On a tangential note, we are in the process of settling out my dad’s estate. I’ve already gotten one threatening email from my dear brother. This should be interesting…</p>
<p>What did we do to deserve such jerks for siblings?</p>
<p>No feedback yet, jym. I’m hoping for some today.</p>
<p>Regarding your bro: You’re not on the best of terms already, correct? So this will simply be more of the same.</p>