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How long would it take to get your house ready if you devoted full time to it? How long would it take to sell if priced right?</p>
<p>How much equity do you have in your house? If you have a decent amount, set up a HELOC, and then quit your job, and devote yourself to selling the house.</p>
<p>Easy for me to say, I guess… 
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<p>I think if I devoted full-time to it, it would take two months to get it ready to put on the market. Of course that would bring us right up to the holiday season, so that would be silly. </p>
<p>We do have a lot of equity in the house, and I already have a HELOC set up that we’ve just never drawn on. Notrichenough, are you suggesting that I quit my job and we use the HELOC to live on while we get it ready?? That scares me greatly – while it might take two months to get the house ready to put on the market, it might take six months to finally sell the damn thing.</p>
<p>I agree with everyone who has pointed out that the best way to get a quick sale is to get the house as perfect as possible, get an inspection done before the house goes on the market, fix anything the inspection found or sell “as is,” and price it a tiny bit below what it really should sell for. That all makes perfect sense to me.</p>
<p>If you did all that in my town, VeryHappy, you’d have buyers knocking down your doors with multiple offers.</p>
<p>Good luck. Getting a house ready for sale can be an exhausting process, especially if you’re trying to do it from out of town.</p>
<p>Lots of movement next door. The price has dropped another 25K. To quote the listing, Bank says SELL THIS HOUSE! Lots of young couples looking at the house. Would require a lot of work, but they’ll have a nice house to raise a family in, with good public schools nearby. Maybe we’ll see a sale by Christmas time!</p>
<p>It might not make sense before Christmas, but maybe in January or February… then you are ready for the spring sales season.</p>
<p>Scary maybe, but you sound miserable right now, could it be any worse than your current situation?</p>
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Even if it is priced to move?</p>
<p>One of the cool things about a HELOC is that use can use the HELOC to make the HELOC payment.</p>
<p>Well cross your fingers and think pleasant thoughts, everone. We have another nibble on my late dad’s house.</p>
<p>Ok…will do. Good luck. :)</p>
<p>Thanks. Am learning not to get hopes up.</p>
<p>Good Luck jym!!!</p>
<p>Good luck, jym.</p>
<p>Real estate is so different depending on where in the country you are.</p>
<p>We’re going to put an offer on the small house we saw on Friday. We had our architect take a look and confirmed that there are no show-stoppers for doing what we want to remodel/extend the house. We also went to the city and confirmed setbacks and square footage limitations.</p>
<p>We put together the strongest terms possible: “as-is”, no financing or other contingencies, 20-day close and 6% over the asking price. We’re including a very strong pre-approval letter from my mortgage broker. There will be 4 other bids as far as we know right now; one will be close to the asking price. We won’t go higher if there’s a counter. </p>
<p>The seller is in Europe and will review the top 2-3 bids. We’ll know the answer tomorrow.</p>
<p>vballmom…good luck to you…</p>
<p>it’s kind of exciting to bid on a place…whether you get it or not…</p>
<p>Wow!! Four competing offers and a “as is” bid 6% over the asking price? Man oh man, I wish my dad’s house was located wherever you are!</p>
<p>JYM good luck!</p>
<p>vballmom, good luck. Sounds like you follow a very non-emotional, scientific process, which is great for buying.</p>
<p>Jym - don’t get your hopes up. Let us do it for you! When you say “nibble”, what exactly do you mean? I’d hold my breath, but that might not be very constructive. I’ll cross my fingers instead. Keep us advised.</p>
<p>Stay tuned…</p>
<p>jym, I knocked on every wooden object around me… Good luck.</p>
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Are you getting a mortgage? 20 days, wow. There is so much paperwork and crap to go through to get a mortgage these days, I am surprised it could be done in only 20 days.</p>
<p>Best of luck, though!</p>
<p>You too, Jym!</p>
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<p>Yes, putting 20% down and financing the rest. The 20-day close was my Realtor’s idea. We’re fudging a bit, and also taking a risk because I haven’t closed escrow on my current house. The new mortgage is dependent on the cash I’m getting from that sale. I’m willing to take that risk because all information that our title company has says the sale will go through.</p>
<p>My mortgage broker had originally said 45 days, which was going kill the deal completely. I talked to him and he agreed to push for 30 days. My Realtor is going to talk to him again today. The strategy is to go in knowing that 20 days is probably unrealistic, and claim “underwriting delays” if/when we miss the date. The house is vacant so it’s not like the owner would be inconvenienced if the sale was delayed, other than having to pay an additional 10 days of their mortgage. We could be taken into arbitration for damages, but those damages would be limited to the carrying costs of the house for the additional 10-15 days, which we’re willing to pay. </p>
<p>So it’s a risky strategy, but we weighed the pros and cons and decided to take it.</p>
<p>We’ve probably spent 10 hours over the past several days talking to our Realtor about how to approach this purchase…I’ll be glad when it’s over, however it goes!</p>
<p>We made an offer many years ago with a no contingency 7 day escrow, no inspections, etc. We did have an inspection but the sale was not contingent upon the results. We actually got the new loan dealt with in that 7 days due to the different loan market back then!</p>
<p>I just closed on a refi yesterday, and am working on another. The banks are so slammed it took more than 20 days just to get the appraisals done. And then there’s the delays because they requested the same information, I kid you not, 4 times. The first one took about 6 weeks, the second one looks like it will be in the 5-6 week time frame by the time we close.</p>
<p>I think your strategy is good, the seller is not going to walk and start the process over for a 10 day delay in the closing, especially if you are willing to cover his costs for that period.</p>