Anyone sold his/her house recently?

[Retire2013]

Like the title, I am just wondering if any Forum member has had any success in selling his/her house/condo/townhome? Thank you. If you have not sold but your home is under contract, please post about that as well. Have a great day, everyone!

[Texas Proud]

Yes....




But I suspect you want more but didn't ask....

[SunsetSail]

We sold a single family house in September that we purchased in early 2004. We had a substantial gain on the property, but it took six months (to within a couple days) to sell it for the price we wanted. We didn't think we could sell for what we wanted so we stopped looking for new homes. We are now renting to see what happens to local prices in the spring or later. Our main motivation for moving was better schools (oldest starts school next year), cheaper housing, and better quality of life. The con was a moderately longer commute but I now have an option for mass transit so it could be a bit of wash.

[Alan]

We sold one at the end of June. Met with 2 realtors, one was a big company, the other was a husband and wife team with one office close by. The small company came over as much more genuine, they estimated a higher selling price and their fees were 0.25% lower.

The house sold in 2 days after the For Sale sign went up for the price he estimated.

[fisherman]

Yes and that is why I have not been posting at all.

We sold (actually traded) our lake house about two months ago. We moved two doors down in the same development as crazy as that sounds. We are now finishing a complete remodel of the new house. 22 gallons of paint, new hardwood throughout, and an upgraded floating dock. We have done all work ourselves including scraping and sanding the popcorn ceilings to make them flat. The house was built in the early 90s but they had outdated taste and had the blown on ceilings done so they had to go per DW.

We decided to do this when our long term neighbors there, an older couple asked us if we were interested in their house and offered to take our smaller house in trade. They just said to tell them what difference we would be willing to pay. We had it appraised and inspected and then looked at the budget and the budget number was considerably less than what the appraisals suggested but we told them that is what we could do and they accepted.

It will be our full retirement home and may be our only home much sooner as it is big enough for the family to live in full time happily. This would certainly be my preference but that is also a decision that DW and the kids will want to be a part of.

This was certainly not a planned sell but rather something we could not pass up.

[EllisWyatt]

Yes......and no.
Yes: we just sold our primary residence in June after having it onthe market for 2 years. Finally realized that the realator we had it listed with wasn't doing anything to move/promote/sell the property, so changed realtors and sold it w/in 2 weeks. Lesson learned.
No: Have the house we THOUGHT would be our retirement home on the market. It's been on the market for 8 months with no serious interest shown. It's a more "unique" property (200 yo log house + multple additions, river front property, etc.etc.), so a more limited market of prospective buyers, but we are seriously considering applying lessons learned on the primary residence to house #2.......

[Westernskies]

define "recently"...

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texas Proud Yes.... But I suspect you want more but didn't ask....

No...

same suspicion...

-ERD50

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Retire2014 Like the title, I am just wondering if any Forum member has had any success in selling his/her house/condo/townhome? Thank you. If you have not sold but your home is under contract, please post about that as well. Have a great day, everyone!

Given that the answer is "Yes", what other question(s) do you have about it?

[hakuna matata]

My wife and I were going to build a house, but when the final costs came in, it just didn't financial sense. So a little depressed we on a whim went house hunting and found a house that was very close to the one we were going to build. And for about $100k less. So we made a low offer and after some negotiations, they accepted!

So we moved and LOVE the new house but long story short, we put our old home on the market and there it sits about three months later. I think it is priced right but the market is just weak right now.

Luckily we can afford both payments and we are the good side of the loan on the other house, so for the most part the majority of the payment goes to the principal. At least that is how I am choosing to look at it. I am just paying myself back down the road.

It will sell eventually as I think it is a good house and at a good price, the market is just a little slow. And if I get in a fight with my wife I have some place to sleep

[devans0]

I will be going through this soon IF I can get a non-paying renter pried out. Court is tomorrow and it has been an aggravating 6 months to get to this point.

[tryan]

Wow! 6 months! Got to serve the notice to quit in the first month they're late. Let'em "yap" all they want ("will pay you next week", "my car broke down", "check is in the mail" .... ) Just smile and keep the process rolling. You can stop it any time.

Sad thing is, if you haven't already seen a judge/abitrator, you're looking at another 30 days to let the tenant find a place to live.

3 months is the max lost in MA.

Back on topic ....

Tried selling a HUD (REO) rehab I did over the summer. 2 months on the market ... dropped the price to the bare-bone minimal profit I would accept (20%). NOTHING. So it's rented for $1300/mo. This will return about 8-9% on the cash I have tied up. Did I mention that the banks are not loaning to investors (this does not bode well for the recovery).

[TargaDave]

We sold a small inherited 2 bed/2bath house in "old" Ft Lauderdale back in Feb of this year. About 3 miles from the ocean. Very tough market down there but we simply looked at what places were selling for (forget listing prices) along with appraisal and broker reccomendations and decided to price accordingly.

Turns out a neighbor across the street was very interested and made a cash offer before we even listed. We countered with a price that was about 10% less than what an appraiser and broker expected us to get (factoring in a commission and dollars we would have spent getting it "sale" ready) and he accepted. Did our own research as well on a realistic price expectation. We were happy to give up the potential 10% for a quick, no hassle sale. Closed in 5 weeks.

Lesson learned: everything sells at the right price

(BTW, many of the working class residents in this area work in the "megayacht" industry which Ft Lauderdale is known for. Surveyors, engineers, tradesman, provisioners, crew staffing, etc. A hard working group. Not talking 90' boats here, more like 150' to 300'. One of the guys we met had just come off of Wendy McCaw's yacht, Calixe.)

[W2R]

Want to see a selling nightmare? This doesn't affect me, but I sure feel sorry for those whose closings have been held up for over a month, possibly with no end in sight:

Real estate records work goes on - NOLA.com

Quote:

A computer crash in late October caused the loss of online data from the late 1980s until this fall that researchers need to go through before any real estate transactions can be closed. Researchers do a 30-year check to determine whether a piece of property is burdened with any liens, lawsuits, court judgments or other legal impediments to a sale. "Without full restoration of this data, buyers will not be able to receive title insurance, nor a clear title on any property in Orleans Parish, which in effect completely halts real estate sales," the New Orleans Metropolitan Association of Realtors said last week.

[check6]

Sold a condo in the upper midwest last April. It took six months; not much traffic. Moved down the hall to a larger unit. I have had an upscale investment home on the market in AZ for 2 years that has been drastically reduced. Had an offer early on but the largest investor did not want to sell. I could have shot him.

[Retire2013]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords Given that the answer is "Yes", what other question(s) do you have about it?

If you are generous with sharing info, the other questions I'd like to ask are:

1) did you get within 90% of the price you had hoped for,

2) how long was it on the market before it got sold?

3) how long from a ratified contract to closing?

4) did you have to switch realtors because the first one(s) did not do much to help sell? or do you have great luck with the first and only realtor?

5) what were some key enhancements that you made to the house, if any, before putting it on the market? re-carpet? re-finish wood floor? etc.

And anything else you might like to share.

Thank you so much, NORDS!

[Retire2013]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Westernskies define "recently"...

Hi Westernskies,

"Recently" - ah, let's go with within the last 12 months. Thank you!

[Retire2013]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 No... same suspicion... -ERD50

Thank you for your reply. Please scroll down to see the 5 additional questions that I posed to NORDS. Yes, I'd like very much to know about all of that "stuff" if you are willing to share the information. Best of luck with the sale of your property.

[Retire2013]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texas Proud Yes.... But I suspect you want more but didn't ask....

Hi Texas Proud,

Please kindly scroll down to see the 5 additional questions that I asked NORDS, please give me answers to those as well if you don't mind sharing that information. I would be most grateful. Congratulations on the sale of your home.

[SunsetSail]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SunsetSail We sold a single family house in September that we purchased in early 2004. We had a substantial gain on the property, but it took six months (to within a couple days) to sell it for the price we wanted. We didn't think we could sell for what we wanted so we stopped looking for new homes. We are now renting to see what happens to local prices in the spring or later. Our main motivation for moving was better schools (oldest starts school next year), cheaper housing, and better quality of life. The con was a moderately longer commute but I now have an option for mass transit so it could be a bit of wash.

Revising my post to include newly requested info:

1. No. We 'hoped' for more. We did get about 105% of the min. we were willing to take.

2. See above

3. 30 day escrow period - final closing delayed 4 days due to an underwriting flag on the appraisal. 34 days total. The buyer was a minor celebrity and had fantasic financials - our escrow agent told us it was the first deal he handled in over a year that closed in less than 45 days.

4. No. The realtor was good. She spend money out of her pocket to set up a website with videos, run extra adds in the paper, stage the house with rented furniture, etc.

5. Not much other than the staging paid for by the realtor. The house was well maintained and updated in style so little needed to be done. I did some landscape clean up and flower planting.

Hopefully this information helps you.