<p>Just scanning this thread and saw 1moremom’s post. I would absolutely love an indoor pool. I used to swim laps for exercise/mental health, and since Katrina, have not been swimming because the indoor pool facility was never rebuilt. Can’t tell you how much weight I’ve gained and stressed out I’ve gotten. I would push the indoor pool as a selling point. I’d love to hear how you built it. I can’t do it in my present home because of settlement issues, but maybe my next home? I’ve been to a doctor’s home who has an indoor pool in sort of an atrium with a screen type roof that rainwater comes into the pool. Glass walls around it. So beautiful! I would absolutely love that. Maybe if I win the lottery, I can buy your house!</p>
<p>And to piggyback on my above post, I do think a house has to be “unique” to sell nowadays. Husband and I drove around yesterday, checking out the plethora of for sale signs in our neighborhood. The nicest house on our block was priced the highest, but has reduced the price after one week from 235 to 223. That house actually filled in their pool about 10 years ago, as the children got older, and I suspect the house is for sale because the owner either passed away or is in a nursing home now. A house a few blocks over, one of the nicest blocks in the subdivision, has a sale pending sign on it. Coincidentally, it is a style similar to our house, but the owners built a beautiful connection between the house and the detached garage. I have always admired the house and I’m not surprised it has a buyer. Can’t wait to see what the price is. As stated before, it would take us at least 100K to make our house unique, beautiful, move in condition, and since we don’t want to take out another mortgage for renovation, we will stay put, although we desperately want to relocate, especially now that we have an empty nest. Waiting to see where son ends up for grad school and perhaps gets married, so we can move close to the grandkids. Wishful thinking, as son does not even have a girlfriend.</p>
<p>We use realtors in calif…</p>
<p>Good point about financing…</p>
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<p>I’m in the same boat. A gal can dream, can’t she?</p>
<p>You can keep the house on the market until all contingencies have been cleared, including financing and inspections.</p>
<p>In California it varies whether or not a pre-approval is required, and at what level. Home buyers who are looking at the $1million+ range are assumed to have been pre-qualified. Some sellers will require pre-approval by a mortgage broker, while others might require the pre-approval to have been authorized by an underwriter. </p>
<p>It’s a real balancing act for the seller, whether or not to accept a purchase offer contingent on financing if there’s no underwriter pre-approval. You risk taking your house off the market while the loan works its way through the system, and take the chance of having the financing fall through at the last minute.</p>
<p>Yes, you keep the house on the market pending contingencies, but the reality is that showings will drop to zero for houses that are pending sale.</p>
<p>Montegut, Our house was built in 1961 and the pool is original. We have a 3 ton dehumidifier (I think that is right) to handle the moisture. I’m sure a new pool could be put in a lot “smarter”. That doctor’s pool does sound lovely!</p>
<p>Well…I expect to sell my house this week…I have multiple people interested…</p>
<p>and one of the things i thought was going to be a negative is turning out to be a positive…</p>
<p>so I am going to be very disappointed if I don’t sell…</p>
<p>One thing that I find amazing is that people are looking at the top of their price range when they want to buy a place…so they don’t have much room to change things, fix things up to their liking …etc…</p>
<p>What is wrong with people?
Why do they feel they have to buy the most house they can afford?
I never did that…and I won’t do that in the future…I recommended to my daughter that she shouldn’t do that either…and she listens. :)</p>
<p>Then we have people calling up my realtor and asking to see the house before it officially opens and then after seeing the house…they say…“I can’t do anything. My spouse is out of town.” </p>
<p>Why can’t these people wait to see the house until their spouse is around? When people call up and ask for a private showing…this takes time…the sellers have to leave (I personally don’t mind this…but I am flexible. I am sure others have more time restraints.). The realtor has to take time out of his or her day. You know…these realtors have lives…There will be a public open house…go then, if your spouse is not around and you are going to make a joint decision. …I have a lot more respect for realtors now that I have seen how the house selling market works…</p>
<p>Realtors have to waste a lot of time…dealing with the clueless public…</p>
<p>"I have a lot more respect for realtors now that I have seen how the house selling market works…
Realtors have to waste a lot of time…dealing with the clueless public… "
Amen to that. Have been married to a Broker for 40 years and it ain’t easy these days.</p>
<p>dstark, Where are you moving to? Out of state?</p>
<p>No…I am moving close by…10 to 15 minutes away…</p>
<p>My house is great if you have kids…</p>
<p>It’s still great otherwise…but…I want a slightly smaller place where I can walk to the store in minutes…</p>
<p>So that is why I am moving…</p>
<p>yeah…I feel really sorry for your husband…there are people who request a private showing that have no intention of ever buying the place…then there are those that think they might buy the place…but they are really serial lookers who can never pull the trigger and actually buy a place…</p>
<p>I understand that buying a place is difficult…but it would be nice if people understood themselves and had respect for others…then they wouldn’t be wasting time…</p>
<p>dstark, what is the thing you thought was a negative but that might turn out to be a positive??</p>
<p>Also,
</p>
<p>That’s a good thing! That means they liked it!!! And they’d like to move forward with an offer, but for something that huge, they do need a spouse’s buy-in.</p>
<p>I’m also amazed at the people who buy at the top of their price range. My rule of thumb is to take the figure you are pre-approved at and don’t spend more then 2/3rds of that amount. I got approved to borrow 200k but wound up borrowing about 125k. Could I fit the higher price in my budget? Probably… but would I be going on vacation next month? Probably not. It’s nice to have extra money left over after each pay check.</p>
<p>Also, in regards to how much realtors work, it really depends on the realtor but for the ones who do it full time… I have the utmost respect for them. I probably drove mine crazy. We must have looked at about 50+ houses… mostly after I got done work at 6pm and on weekends. Their work hours are our free hours. I started out looking at houses in one price range, and after figuring in how much I’d have to spend on fixing them up decided to look in a higher price range. I only had one or two areas I was willing to look in, so that really narrowed down my search. Nice thing about taking so long to find a house was that by the time I found a house in my newer price range, interest rates lowered to the point that the mortgage wasn’t any more then what it would have been if I found a price originally in my lower price range! Win-win!! It also worked out better for my realtor because he got a cut - I believe 3% of the purchase price… which wound up being even more since I spent about 10k-20k or so more on my house then I originally had intended to. I really got a steal on the house I wound up with because the sellers had already dropped the price 20k and I got them down another 15-20k (had to give on a few other things, but they did pay my closing in full)… so it worked out every which way. :)</p>
<p>dstark, I agree. Being house-poor is not a good way to go. While we needed two incomes in order to do what we needed to financially (i.e., college and retirement), we used only one income in buying a house. Was a good decision when a few years later, medical issues took me permanently out of the FT workforce.</p>
<p>Hope you get a bidding war (or at least one GOOD offer) soon!</p>
<p>CountingDown…thanks…</p>
<p>VeryHappy…I was told that having a swimming pool would limit the buyer pool…maybe it does…but there are buyers that want a pool…</p>
<p>So …so far…3 groups are interested in the house and have come back multiple times…</p>
<p>Since none of these 3 groups have made a bid…I would like to see a new group step up. :)</p>
<p>What I am hearing is that it is very hard, but not impossible to get a jumbo loan…a buyer needs 25 to 30 percent down…</p>
<p>Sounds promising!</p>
<p>“What I am hearing is that it is very hard, but not impossible to get a jumbo loan…a buyer needs 25 to 30 percent down…”</p>
<p>you heard correctly. they also need perfect credit history. and not be self employed. and and and…</p>
<p>House is sales pending.</p>
<p>Inspections…</p>
<p>Soon…I will have to find something else to do…;)</p>
<p>Oh, Hooray dstark!</p>
<p>Have you found you new residence?</p>
<p>Thanks…</p>
<p>No I haven’t found a new place…</p>
<p>I think we will rent while we wait for something to come up…</p>
<p>We know where we want to live, but there is nothing for sale right now…</p>
<p>We are taking a chance…by doing it this way…</p>
<p>Mominva…you are going to sell in a few years?</p>
<p>wow, you got an offer and agreed to a price? I’m sorry, I just wasn’t sure what sale pending meant.</p>
<p>Congratulations! That was so quick. Obviously your hard work paid off.</p>
<p>Would you like any fire wood for your new home? :)</p>