How is the house selling season going?

Parent Cafe
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<p>Well - it has been a long time since I updated here. I have been BUSY.</p>

<p>Because, we finally found a home that truly is our dream home, except that three of the things I INSISTED were absolutely NON NEGOTIABLE - could not be on a dirt road with directions instead of an address, had to have natural gas, and must have lots of big windows - well, it failed on those. And I am having to repaint every wall and it has popcorn ceilings that MUST GO and all the flooring is wrong.</p>

<p>And yet, somehow, it is the perfect house for us, and we love it.</p>

<p>It was a good bit more than our maximum budget. But it had been on the market a long time and they were motivated so we made an offer and it was a lot lower than they wanted but they did soul searching and took it. We couldn’t believe it. It’s on 8 acres, right outside of town but still within a 12 minute drive to work for me (I have to go through 3 lights instead of one but oh well) The house is exactly the right size, not too small, not too big. It is on city water but has a well, it has a greenhouse (we don’t know just what to do with it yet…maybe they will legalize pot in Texas and we can retire HAHA) The bones of the house are open and it has a huge porch all along the front of it opening into the yard which has a decorative metal fence to feel secure but not block the view…it has a little fish pond in the back and a big fishing pond out on the acreage.</p>

<p>It was built in the 80s and is very solid, but outdated walls, which I can fix, it just takes time.</p>

<p>So we bought it, and moved in the first week of November, JUST as my job went full time…in RETAIL…at HOBBY LOBBY…AT CHRISTMAS TIME and I never ever ever ever ever ever want to do that again. fifteen years at our old place, fifteen years worth of STUFF to figure out whether to ditch it or move it…we still have boxes in every closet and the detached double car garage is just boxes to go through still.</p>

<p>But we love it.</p>

<p>And our old house, was on the market longer than we would have liked, but we listed it at about 15,000 more than we frankly thought it would go for. As soon as we dropped it below 100,000, we got an offer and it was a good offer, at our asking price but wanting a few thousand in seller’s assistance, so we took it and it went smoothly.</p>

<p>We cleaned out all our money and then took all the money from selling our old house and paid off the new one. (the old one was paid off already)</p>

<p>So now here we are, in what my parents call our “destination” home. Now we just have to keep ourselves fit and active so we can take care of it as we age, because I told my kids I was never leaving or moving EVER AGAIN and they’ll have to take me out of this place in a box!</p>

<p>Moral of the story: happy endings, from sudden and unexpected turns of events: they happen.</p>

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<p>^^So did you at least get small windows for the dust on the dirt road? :slight_smile: Boy what I wouldn’t give to be on natural gas instead of LP.</p>

<p>Congrats and best wishes on making it the perfect dream house!</p>

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<p>Congratulations, snapdragonfly!! Eight acres?? Sounds wonderful!</p>

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<p>The windows seem small to me because my other house actually had huge windows - every room had either triple windows, or one double and one single window. This house just has single windows, BUT, somehow it does not have that dungeon look from the outside that some houses with too small of windows have. I guess the windows are in proportion somehow.</p>

<p>The dust we just have to deal with…I will never have a clean car for more than a day I guess.</p>

<p>I miss natural gas, but, the price had gone up so much in the past few years that we are finding that all electric isn’t as expensive in comparison as it used to be. The main thing is that I hate electric stoves, but I splurged and got an induction cooktop which my mom, the world’s best home economist, told me I would love cause she loves hers and I DO! So clean and instant. The only other thing is that if power goes off you don’t have the comfort of still having hot water and cooktop. We get ice storms that knock our power out for a few days every so often here. We might just get a generator.</p>

<p>Thanks for the good wishes :slight_smile: I never thought we would actually find a place that was pretty much just like what we wanted to build. But we did. I really did not want to build.</p>

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<p>snapdragon, you could always still try to get a portable camp stove or something of the sort for the rare occasion when the power goes out. I know induction cooktops can draw quite a bit of energy, so that might still be the way to cook when you lose power.</p>

<p>Congratulations on finding a place you’re more than happy with, though. :)</p>

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<p>Don’t run a camp stove in the house!!! The fumes can be deadly. We have a propane grill, which we use year round, especially when the power goes out. Also have a camp stove, which we’ll run on our screened porch if necessary.</p>

<p>Our local power company has a poor reputation for reliability (though things have improved of late), but we got used to multi-day outages in both summer and winter.</p>

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<p>I set up a realtor to come in this Sunday to give us an idea of what we could sell it for. H keeps saying he’s not ready; I told him we’re not listing it yet – just getting information. And she can see through the clutter. Some rooms are spiffy and clean and staged; others look a little more “lived in”. I know what I need to do before any potential buyers come in.</p>

<p>What’s hard is trying to do all the cleaning after work and on weekends. I feel like I’m cramming for an exam and didn’t go to class.</p>

3408

<p>“List price = $349,000 … the unit sold for $386,000.”
“all the ‘for sale’ signs have ‘under contract’ added to them.”</p>

<p>As the advertising tag line goes “Every Market is Different.” Last night I checked R***tors dot com to see what the housing market is doing in our town. Sixty-five houses listed, with thirty-six annotated with “price reduced within the past 30 days.” The five-bedroom house behind me has again been reduced. It was listed at $629,000 in March and is now offered at $399,000. The doc who owns it doesn’t need the money, but still …</p>

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<p>I get market reports each month for the community in Hilton Head where we have our second home. In August, 17 homes sold, compared to August 2012 when 9 sold. There were also 23 homesites which sold during August. The market in this area of SC has been a busy one.</p>

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<p>My aunt and uncle’s condo closes next week in Florida. It has been on the market for just over a year, but it had been priced too high. I am a bit sad to see it go…</p>

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<p>T minus 16 hours and we still have a lot of cleaning to do. My manicure is shot. We have so many garbage bags filled we could make a snowman. I am not cooking anything smelly. There was enough hair in D/S’s bathroom I could make my own person out of it. I have plumped up cushions and dusted and sprayed. It’s like my house is going on a date.</p>

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<p>LOL. Cousin It!</p>

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<p>Ha ha, how true. My house looked so pretty before the open house that I wanted to hide in a closet and listen to all the “Oohs!” and “Ahs!” that I was sure would be murmured by every visitor. I looked around and wondered how the heck I could even entertain the idea of selling. :D</p>

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<p>Nrdsb4 – did your house find true love?</p>

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<p>NewHope – reduced from 629 to 399? Yikes! But good for some lucky buyer?</p>

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<p>^^^Or was it overpriced to begin with?</p>

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<p>^ It’s a very nice house. IMO it’s simply a victim of the current “perfect storm” of change … changing tastes, changing demographics, changing economic climate, etc. What seems to be doing best in our town is new construction with expansive lawns, in planned communities designed for small families. This house is none of that.</p>

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<p>Haha, yes. The only bad thing was it went “firm” only seven days after signing the contract, and they closed 4 days after that. 11 days to get out and we had not found a new house yet. I couldn’t sleep at night. We finally found a short term rental, moved, and then moved again 3 months after that. Don’t want to do that again, but what are you going to do when “true love” calls? :D</p>

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<p>Moving itself is never easy, and moving when you’re selling and buying is downright impossible – especially if you need the money from one house to buy the second house, and especially if you’re trying to move only once. We did it last October; it was a nightmare.</p>

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<p>Nrdsb4 — that sounds like one crazy love affair :)</p>

<p>Realtor just left. The plan is: continue cleaning and decluttering and list it somewhere between Oct 1 and 15. I had to start the tour with S’s bathroom so he could take a shower once she’d seen it. Fortunately H didn’t want to be there when she was there, which is good because after the realtor said what she’d list it at, he would have said something like “I’ll be glad if we half that much!”</p>

<p>Question for those of you who’ve done this before – we are putting clothes in big Hefty bags and hauling them to storage space (stuff like ski clothes, extra sheets and towels, etc.) We label the bags but labels can fall off. Where would I find large sturdy clear plastic bags (without spending a bundle)?</p>

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<p>We use the clear 55-gallon “drum liners” sold at Ace Hardware Stores. Sixty for $22.</p>