<p>Please guys, if you want to talk about the stock and day trade, have your own thread, don’t mix stock and housing together.</p>
<p>Yeah…we got off track…we should keep this thread about housing.</p>
<p>Sorry.</p>
<p>Now that I’ve unfortunately picked up a third house, I need to determine if I should sell it or rent it. Either way, it needs cleaning, updating and lawn care until a final decision is made. I really don’t want any houses but the market is so bad that I’ll probably end up renting it out. I expect that it will take me until September to get it cleaned out however.</p>
<p>Which area of the country is that house in doct? I forget.</p>
<p>My parents want to put their house on the market, but thay don’t have the strength to do this anymore. So it is up to my brothers and me to get the house ready and we aren’t doing anything…inertia.</p>
<p>Why aren’t you selling your house Doct…you said your house was the nicest house in a lousy meighborhood. Bad real estate market? Or you are comfortable there?</p>
<p>I have two houses in CT and 1 in RI. I don’t want to sell my primary residence in CT until we retire and then plan on moving to the house in RI which is a .8 miles from the beach and I currently rent it out. The “nicest house in a lousy neighborhood” referred to our economy vs the rest of the world not to actual houses. All three houses are average houses in average neighborhoods. In both states, the real estate market is terrible and hopefully over the next 5 years or so will improve.</p>
<p>Yeah…hopefully…things will improve over the next 5 years…</p>
<p>Those of you who are selling, are you really “staging” your homes? I was truly amazed when my sister brought her next-door neighbor into my parents’ home a short time before we put it on the market (when we were still picking out paint and carpet colors). Not only did this gal do a fab job selecting the colors, but she staged the whole house (I wanted to move in…lol). We all kept saying, “this is the house we grew up in”??? lol</p>
<p>this whole staging thing seems to have gone to a whole new level. Before, you just made sure the carpets were new (or cleaned), paint was fresh, and everything was nice, clean, and neat. Now, the homes need to be staged in amazing ways.</p>
<p>Houses in my area are generally staged, either the entire house or the living room/dining room/master bedroom, with all other rooms empty. I had the stager bring in furniture for my living room, and used my own furniture everywhere else. </p>
<p>On the other hand, sometimes people’s ideas about staging are a bit odd:</p>
<p>[10</a> Ridiculously Desperate Real Estate Listings](<a href=“http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Media/Slideshow/2011/06/30/Most-Desperate-Real-Estate-Ads.aspx]10”>http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Media/Slideshow/2011/06/30/Most-Desperate-Real-Estate-Ads.aspx)</p>
<p>Update on my area: Over the last few weeks every For Sale sign has turned to Sold. Houses which have been on the market for awhile and those that have only been on a few weeks. I expect to see more For Sale signs going up in the next few weeks.</p>
<p>I’m staging to the extent that it means painting, removing clutter, personal items and extraneous furniture, mulching and garden stuff, thorough cleaning regularly. Might hang some curtains, and am power washing the deck today. But we still live here (with 2 teens and a dog) and I’m not bringing in special furniture or a decorator so it is what it is.</p>
<p>Realtor is walking through Tuesday to discuss what we might do, have to do, etc. Target on-market is 1-2 weeks after that.</p>
<p>obm,</p>
<p>Assuming your house is in ohio, how is the housing market? up, down or sideways? Much still under the water?</p>
<p>Just checked out some areas beyond the communtable to the Bay Area because a house for auction looks cheap. Found that every house on the market still is either short sale or Bank owned, not a good scene. Sacramento is still having a blood bath.</p>
<p>Our town didn’t have much of a rise or dip, more of a gentle climb that flattened for awhile.</p>
<p>Other parts of Ohio are still pretty down. </p>
<p>The general downturn was tempered locally by a new 4 lane highway connecting us to our 30 minute away big city, which makes us commutable, though still feeling like a small college town in the country. By some measures we have the best school district in the state, certainly in the area. Also, houses like mine, in the old part of the village (walkable to everything), are limited in number and no more can be built, so we have done OK (I guess I’ll let you know how OK soon…I hope).</p>
<p>We’ve had a handful of foreclosures and short sales. Certainly more than we had 10 years ago but nothing major.</p>
<p>Ohiobassmom…are you staying in Ohio?</p>
<p>Emilybee…That sounds like a big change from last year.</p>
<p>Inventory as I said before is very low where I live, but…if a place comes on the market and it is priced too high…it sits.</p>
<p>There was a house that came on the market priced about 20 percent too high. It was on the ,arket for about a month…and then it was taken off the market. I guess the sellers just took a flyer…</p>
<p>I am staying in the same town, in fact. Just done with large 130 year old house and yard, S is heading to college, it’s time.</p>
<p>Ok…I understand…</p>
<p>You don’t have to change your screen name.:)</p>
<p>dstark, big change. The houses from last spring/summer that just sold were way over priced ($75-100K or more.) Most were owned by people who had lived there for years, were trying to sell to downsize and thought it was still 2007 and we were in a suburb of NYC instead of Albany. Totally unrealistic. These were homes that even with a drop in price of that amount were still going to give them huge profits. The other things about all these homes is that they all needed to be updated from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s look. Now people are being more realistic WRT pricing (and still making money on their homes) and they are moving fast. </p>
<p>My town also has had few foreclosures so not the glut of bank owned property many areas have had to deal with, plus we had a 2 yr. building moratorium at the height of the bubble which has kept inventory of homes in my town low.</p>
<p>I’m doing the major cleanups, painting inside and out, fixing the stuff that came up in the inspections, and then for pictures and the first week of showing the designer will come in and re-arrange my furniture and bring in a few pieces to add. </p>
<p>We are taking out some really ugly stuff, like the massage chair. But the stager looked through the home and pointed out what stays and what goes. It looks like we could live here during those weeks, but it happens we are at orientation back east, so we won’t be here.</p>
<p>Emilybee…interesting that once sellers realistically priced homes…they sold…</p>
<p>I know people that would like to sell…at 2007 prices…so they wait…</p>
<p>UCDAlum… We stayed in our house while we were selling…once the house went sales pending…we moved out. We didn’t want to break anything. :)</p>
<p>Oooooph. Just spent an hour and half in the basement, organizing and vacuuming up some dust, dirt and mouse dung from 1992. (No, it wasn’t dated, but that’s the last time I recall seeing a mouse in the house.) </p>
<p>Unfortunately, only about one third finished with the basement.</p>
<p>Gee, this refinancing is taking forever. They definitely put you through more hoops than they used to. We had to provide extra info on the Home Depot account we opened recently (we got it because they offered a big discount if you opened an account, and we didn’t even have to charge the purchase to the HD card!). Now they’re asking for a copy of our 2010 return (we already gave them the one for 2011). Our income is fairly high and we have an excellent credit rating, so this is annoying.</p>