We hit 21 days on the market this past Friday, and received our first offer for our home of 25+ years. If you've read other posts in my series of "Selling a House in a Lousy Economy", you'll understand we were convinced to lower our price $10k after 10 days, and this generated a ton of traffic through our house (during the past 2 weeks, only Tuesday and Friday did not have at least one showing). The end result was one low ball offer. Someone offered us $207k; our original price was $249,900 lowered to $239,900.
This evening over dinner my wife and I discussed the implications of this activity. If one pays a 6% real estate fee, other closing costs and moving costs ... why not just sink $25k into some remodeling of our present home. We own it free and clear. It's a nice house.
Our plan is to purchase a town home, with a monthly association fee. I wonder how much a yard / snow removal service would be for our present home? These are the questions one starts to ask. Is the disruption in our lives worth the aggravation. Is the present value of all the costs to move positive? We don't know. The end of our dinner conversation tonight was to tighten up the amount of money we would ultimately accept for our home.
$239,900 (our house!)
I'd stay put and look into yard services if it were me. Since you own it outright you don't have the monthly mortgage payments to worry about so financially it isn't much of a burden. While it might be a good buyer's market right now, it definitely isn't a good seller's market. Why do you want to move anyway?
Posted by: Amanda Smith | October 13, 2010 at 04:53 PM
I thought you were moving to Duluth...?
If you're just planning to get another residence in the twin cities, I would reconsider - you're better off staying put.
But if you're moving out of the city - well, I'd take the low-ball offer and get out of Dodge while the getting is good.
IMHO.
Posted by: Stephen Downes | October 12, 2010 at 11:18 AM