[ladydoc]

Originally Posted by wlou

Opinions needed...House up in VA has been for sale 2 months..Lots of lookers, no offers yet...Realtor thinks its priced too high...Those of you who recently sold up north to move to TV, did you have to take a large reduction in price? Dilemma, do we wait it out hoping the market gets better...or Reduce now and just get out and to our place in TV??? Hard decisions...On the one hand you dont want to "give your house away"...but on the other, keep paying those monthly mortgage payments for another year as you wait??? hmmmm

Really does depend on how much you want to move. Life is not always about getting the top dollar....enjoying your time is much more important. It is never fun to lose money on investments, but it you can get what you paid for it, you are doing OK. I imagine it is hardest for people who bought in the unrealistically high market and are underwater now. If you are not drowning, sell and get down here. If you can rent it out, that is an option as well. We are renting our house and getting a VERY good return on the rent. It pays for our mortage payment here and all the utilities. Fortunately, it is paid off and the taxes are less then $1000 a year.

So, basically, go with your heart and don't try to time the market. That time won't ever come back to you,

[maynaze]

Here is my experience as a Buyer. We recently found a home we liked. It was listed at 239K. After looking at Comparable homes our agent said that 225K was a very good deal. This home has been on the market over a year. The Sellers came back with 237,900. We expected them to come down a bit more but they refused. We really liked the home so we offered 235K if they included the living room and bedroom set. They still did not budge.

So we decided not to deal with them and went elsewhere. I guess my point is expect some wiggle room and try to work with the buyers so you can come up with a number that works for both of you.

If you are NOT getting any offers, I do think you may be asking to much.
Melody

[ssmith]

WLou has posted other threads and it sounds like they live here now.

[smunro55]

Just sold my house in Vienna VA. Alot of lookers with no offers until I reduced price. It's all about the price. Market will take a long time to improve. I would sell now because inventory is low. We wanted to move and not wait...because the wait may not produce more money.

[CarGuys]

After four years we had it! Started lowering it till it hurt and when it hurt the most it sold.

Always will second guess what would have happened it we held out another 4 years.

I know would still be there not here?

Best of luck I remember your pain.

[CMANN]

Originally Posted by wlou

Opinions needed...House up in VA has been for sale 2 months..Lots of lookers, no offers yet...Realtor thinks its priced too high...Those of you who recently sold up north to move to TV, did you have to take a large reduction in price? Dilemma, do we wait it out hoping the market gets better...or Reduce now and just get out and to our place in TV??? Hard decisions...On the one hand you dont want to "give your house away"...but on the other, keep paying those monthly mortgage payments for another year as you wait??? hmmmm

get an opinion from another realtor. Let him set the price. If it is lower then your price you may want to consider dropping it. Do so in very small increments.

If the new realtor suggests a higher price do it. You can always drop down later.

Is the house properly stage? If not, that can help.

When we sold our house three years ago we had prices from three realtors. To realtors were pretty close. The third realtor was about 20% high. We went with the third. We got her price.

If you really in a panic you can revert to the St. Joseph method of selling real estate. We did. The house sold and 46 days. You can look up the St. Joseph on the Internet.

Just some opinions that might give you food for thought.

[thistrucksforyou]

Retirement.....mortgage.....doesn't compute

[OurHappyHome]

My wife is a Broker and if your home is in decent shape it is only due to one thing, Price.
Have the realtor do a CMA, comparative market analysis. This needs to be in your neighborhood or within one mile, not ten miles.

If I want to sell I price at the CMA price. You can look at the comparable homes, drive-by or even go look at the competition that is for sale and see how you think your house compares. That is what buyers do. Your home is only worth what people are willing pay for. Not what you hope or think it is worth.

The last thing is that no one knows how long it will take the market to return. You just need to live your life and enjoy it. We are where we are in the market so play the current hand you are dealt.

Well this is how I handle my sales and how I would do it, good luck.

[dkrhardy]

We had our home on the market for right at a year. We did the St Joseph thing too! Did it help? Nope. We got tired of waiting to start the rest of our lives and DUMPED the house. 6 yr old, 4 bd 3 ba, 2800 sf, large lawn, and showed like a model. Folks wanted it but had to do a contingency. We didn't want to do that. So we found a young couple that needed a bigger home and sold cheap. We lost the down payment, all improvements ( alot of them) and took $20K out of our pockets to get us on our road. The time waiting was not worth it to us. Now we are here and having fun instead of fretting over a couple of bucks.
Don & Kaz

[Villages PL]

Originally Posted by wlou

Opinions needed...House up in VA has been for sale 2 months..Lots of lookers, no offers yet...Realtor thinks its priced too high...Those of you who recently sold up north to move to TV, did you have to take a large reduction in price? Dilemma, do we wait it out hoping the market gets better...or Reduce now and just get out and to our place in TV??? Hard decisions...On the one hand you dont want to "give your house away"...but on the other, keep paying those monthly mortgage payments for another year as you wait??? hmmmm

Get a licensed real estate appraiser who will provide an official written appraisal. Not a real estate agent. Then, hopefully, you will have the confidence that it is accurate and not biased.

[shcisamax]

Well, I am confused. Is the realtor that listed your house the one who is now saying it is too high? Did the realtor originally price it or did you? Barefoot astutely stated: Selling your home at market value is not "giving your house away". If you are getting lots of showings but no offers, then your house is overpriced.

The economy is not recovering. Buyers aren't even looking at houses that are comps. They want the deal. I can't even think about how much under the competition we finally priced the house. It was gone in less than a month with multiples. I choked but as my husband wisely noted, we would make it up on this side on the house and the living expense. Wellllll, not totally but the mood here is not so gloomy

[jmvalcq]

You have to look at it as a business decision, take the emotions out of the equasion. How much are my cost to stay? How fast are prices rising on the homes in the villages. If you wait for your home market to improve, every other market will increase also.

[wannab]

Our agent brought comps to us and suggested a price....we thought it was worth more and told the agent we wanted to put it on the market for x-number of dollars more for a trial period of two weeks. If it didn't sell by the end of the two weeks, we would go with her suggested price. To her credit, she agreed. We got a full price offer from the first looker on the first day. We felt a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and accepted. Sure we could have held out for more, but the object of the game is to sell and get to TV, not to try and squeeze blood from a turnip.

[Down Sized]

It took me a year and half to give my house away. When in a normal market houses on my street would sell in 1 - 3 days. Outside The Village bubble buyers are having a hard time getting loans and sellers are having an even tougher time selling their house. I traveled 27 states looking for an area to move (excluding the East coast and northern states.) The real estate situation was about the same where ever I went except here. Even 10 miles down the road the prices drop about 25%.
When The Villages Realestate drops the new houses $10,000 here shows how rough the market is. I bought my cottage in July and paid less than the previous owner had paid a year earlier after them doing several upgrades.

[Down Sized]

Originally Posted by thistrucksforyou

Retirement.....mortgage.....doesn't compute

Sure it does! I'll take all the 3.85 loan money that they wil give me. Sure am making a lot more in my IRA than that. Why would I want to sell stocks for 3.85 percent. That doesn't Compute.