<p>I just cleaned up a hoarder‘s house。 It is a small house about 1100 sqft。 But it took almost 12 hours, 3 person team to hoard all the junks away AFTER the previous owner spent 30 days+ to select and keep the “most valuable” to him. The house smells badly after everything was cleared. I bought from the 99c stores 10 boxes of baking soda and just start spread it all over the place, after a week or so, it does not have the smell any more.</p>
<p>BTW, the previous owner had a cat.</p>
<p>Buy the lot, raze the house and put a small modular house on the lot. Some very cool modern ones available, and cheaper than stick built. Big screened-in porch, then all you need is 1000 sq feet of really well-designed space! Just my 2 cents…</p>
<p>Can you make it the hoarder’s responsibility to clean out the junk? Is it possible to do a home inspection? </p>
<p>I kind of like the raze it and put up modular…can you price that out?</p>
<p>Well, the existing house is a decent size house – two bedrooms upstairs (which is the main floor, to take advantage of the views) and two downstairs. Fireplace upstairs and fireplace downstairs. LR/DR area comes to an angled “V” with floor to ceiling windows. I’d salvage that if I could.</p>
<p>Spoke to DH and he is interested. </p>
<p>There is no rush – the house has been on the market for at least six months, maybe even a year (realtor to find out).</p>
<p>Here’s the big question: How do I estimate how much everything we want to do will cost? Obviously there’s always the unknown – e.g., there could be mold, which might not be discovered until later. Do I bring in an architect and a builder and get them to give me a rough idea at this point?</p>
<p>There’s also a lot of landscaping and masonry to be done. I’d want a patio instead of the lower deck, and I’d want some nice stone steps to the river, and some stone walls, and so forth.</p>
<p>The work sounds expensive to me.</p>
<p>Do you have to redo the kitchen and bathrooms too?</p>
<p>Yes. You need to bring in a builder and architect. You make your bid based on contingencies.</p>
<p>How could an inspector do his/her job with all that clutter? Perhaps your offer should be predominantly for the land only, with the assumption that the house is a tear down. Where would you live inthe meantime? The idea of a temporary modular may work, but it could be a tough winter…</p>
<p>Oh, we’d rent something. There are a lot of rentals in the area.</p>
<p>The kitchen might be salvageable – it looks new-ish, but I didn’t get that good a look – but definitely the bathrooms need to be done. The kitchen is really just a galley kitchen open to the DR, so it’s not that big. The cabinets looked decent (although filthy – there were streaks of spilled stuff running down them) but obviously I need to show it to DH, get back in there and really look around. (It undoubtedly reflects on the owner’s neuroses that – of all the many many houses I’ve looked at through the years – he’s the only owner who’s hung around and, in fact, conducted the “tour.” I suspect it makes him acutely uncomfortable to have someone else pouring through his stuff.) Need to get in there with a team of experts who will tell me all the awful, awful things I’m not considering.</p>
<p>On one site I looked at, a two-story modular will run around $60/sq ft + foundation.</p>
<p>This would probably be the same price if not cheaper than doing a large renovation, and it would be all new and up to code. If there are mold issues you will be gutting the entire house.</p>
<p>How much would just the land be worth relative to the current asking price?</p>
<p>I’d consult with a contractor/builder. And consider an offer mostly on land value…but it sounds like it could be a real diamond in the rough.</p>
<p>Well, the house is still under consideration – DH and I are going back together this Sunday, and I insisted that the owner (not to mention his six-month-old dog) not be present. So we’ll really get to look around.</p>
<p>In the meantime, I learned that:
<p>In the meantime, I saw another possibility tonight. Since this thread is about selling one’s house, not the possibility of buying the next [funky] one, I’m going to start a new thread, called “Buying the Next House.” Come join me.</p>
<p>Why not post in the dealing with realtors thread?</p>
<p>In escrow… once again. Got the offer week before last, just as we were boarding the ship for our Alaskan cruise. Keeping my fingers crossed this time around!</p>
<p>Good luck jshain. The second time is the charm.</p>
<p>Contingencies lifted today and poised to close escrow soon! My brother just bought a condo in Rossmoor, about a mile from my (new) home. My sister also lives in Walnut Creek about 2 miles from me in the same zip code, my parents live in Moraga (a short 15 minute drive from my home), my son is a sophomore at Cal, and my recently graduated from BC daughter starts her accounting job next month in San Jose. I cannot remember the last time we all lived in the same area…</p>
<p>That’s great jshain. Enjoy.</p>
<p>Did condo prices take a big hit at Rossmoor?</p>
<p>I haven’t been following the price trends real closely in Rossmoor. I think they have come down though, just not sure how much. There isn’t a lot of inventory and units priced correctly are selling very quickly.</p>
<p>Ok…thanks.</p>
<p>Yes, I checked out Rossmoor and as an investor, it does not work. For some one wants care free living, its fine. Condo fees are sky high.</p>
<p>Thought I’d give my CC friends an update. My house has been on the market for a little more than a week. We’ve had 7 people look, which I think is good. We tried to price carefully: a reasonable, conservative price, not sky high. Realator concurs our price is fair. House is 5 bedroom, 3 bath with a pool and a nice small yard. It’s immaculate and well maintained, but lacks the granite counters, fancy updates, etc. Two offers so far. The first was 12% under our asking price. Today’s offer from a different person was a staggering 20% lower than our asking price! We are not even offering a counter to that. Sigh…guess we just have to be patient. It seems the waters are full of sharks looking for someone in distress, which we are not. Thank heavens. I’ll keep you posted.</p>
<p>Marigold, I think it is a mistake not to counter any offer. Sometimes people just put out the first offer as a lowball, just in case someone is desperate and will take them up on it. Just giving it a try. Forget offense or ego, you just want to sell your house. I recommend that you merely counter with an offer that is acceptable to you.</p>
<p>Let me give you an example. About six years ago, when the market was pretty hot, we were looking for a local move. We found a house that we liked, that had been on the market for awhile. Put what would be considered a lowball first offer on it (about 6% less than asking price, lowball for back then). The people never even responded, which I considered very rude, and they accepted another offer a week later, a bit higher than ours. We would have paid full price, and were just giving it a try. That offer fell through because of a contingency (we had no contingency), and they ended up selling a couple months later for lower than our first lowball offer. All they would have had to do was counter back full price, or a bit lower. But they just ignored us, so we bought something else…very happy with that choice in the end.</p>