Thanks Caroline
 

What the realtors are saying is list next month (kitchen finished, house repainted) for 900 thou hoping to get 875 which would net me 805 thousand (I have 850 invested in it) or put in another 200 thou and list in March or April 2011 for 1.25 mil hoping to get 1.175 which would net me 1.081 mil so I would loose 19 thousand instead of 45 thousand is their reasoning. They also think it will sell faster but, I think it is too much of a risk.
It was this recomendation (which I got from two of the 4 realtors) which would net me if it worked 26 thousand and the realtors 12 that got me going on this rant in the first place. Thanks for your calm response.

Hi Trudy, did you mean to say the recommendation is to list it in 2011 if you invest another 200k? I'm with Trudy. Sounds like a heck of a gamble to sink another 200k into a house you'd prefer to sell now, and then wait another year to sell it, in hopes of recovering the additional investment in an unpredictable housing market. If it were me, I know wouldn't have the stomach for it.

Thanks for your thoughts
 

I might give that a try, but I will probably end up with a realtor as lot of the people buying are relos from out of town. I think I will just have to wait another year. Things have come back up about 10% (after dropping about 25%) around here so maybe by next year I will be out of the hole.

Be Your Own Agent
 

Trudy,
If you have the time, I would first trying selling your home yourself. I did it with my first home, back in the 1980's. This was when we were in a much worst recession with interests rates on home mortgages around 13%.
I did my homework and priced my home comparably with others in my area. I had only one open house and three people made an offer that day. I accepted the one that met my asking price, hired a real estate attorney to handle the closing and that was it.
Today with the Internet and the ability to reach a much larger audience I plan to sell my current home when we retire. By not having to pay an agent's commission, I can use that as leverage with the asking price of my home. I don't recommend this for everyone, but I'm going to give it a shot again.
Annabelle
PS .....If you do decide to use an agent, be wary of anyone who gives you a list of very expensive things (sometimes unnecessary) to do in order to sell your home.

TWO things....at the price range you are in, I think most prospecive buyers will be using agents and as you say probably alot of agents specializing in relocations that would not touch a FSBO.

I am all for savings buck, but from my personal experience you cannot compare selling a house prior to 2006 to todays market. Practically anyone who was selling 2002-2005 could put up a FSBO sign and have a couple of open houses and sell their house...and agent was not really necessary. we first put our house on the market in spring of 2007 with a company called Help-U-Sell. Supposidly this was a full service RE agency that offered greatly reduced RE commission schedule to sell your house offering 3% to selling agent from MLS, while they placed your home on MLS, Realtor.com, advertised locally etc. Your responsibility was to hold your own open house. If you sold the house through an open house your cost was only $595, if this agency sold your house it was 1% plus the $595. NO advance money or fees were provided....no house sale no payment. If we got a buyer, hey it would have been great but in retrospect, it was 8-9 months lost!

The problems started to arise when we got an offer the agent failed to properly follow up and deals fell through. In this market you need a full time RE agent not only to take care of your side of business but to make certain the buyer has all his stuff together when you come to the closing table.

One recommendation is DONOT fall for those unsolicited RE calls, from agents who know your listing is about to expire, and they ask you do you know why your house is not selling??? They of course want you to say the price is too High, and then they wil go into their marketing approach and how they sell so many homes. I never fell for that approach for after my first experience, I always went with someone who was local and knew the market and would bring by clients on their own.

RE commission
 

I know this is NOT the norm BUT after contract time ran out on present realtor for our home in NC, we raised the price $20,000 and sold it two weeks later ourselves...:loco: .giggle...life is good especially here in the Villages