The Pain of Selling Your House

[marty]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-schwartz20oct20,0,1715594.story?coll=la-opinion-center

 

[Caroline]

That was excellent reading -- thanks!

 

[Lusitan]

Interesting article. In my neck of the woods, housing prices are still outrageously overpriced by all historical indicators, and there are now many, many houses sitting on the market. But prices really haven't dropped that much yet.

We own a small house and will be looking to upgrade in a few years, but for now I'm content to sit on the sidelines and watch home prices fall.

 

[dumpster56]

Real funny article. we did that! except the house we bought 10 years ago for 240,000 we sold for 513,000 the first day of May this year. We LISTED THE HOUSE at 519,000 while SOOOO many other homes that were the same darn model, yes a toll brothers neighborhood in New Jersey were listed at or above 600,000!

We knew the market was going to the dogs, we knew that we had NEVER BORROWED A PENNY against the house so we knew that we could low ball the price and walk away with almost 300,000!! Which we did and bought a place for almost all cash far away from nJ while the same homes sit down unsold and now in the 480,000 range.

I feel smart for once in my life.

 

[Retire Soon]

I think the article has a lot of truth to it. We paid 173,000 for our house in 1989 in San Diego. We listed it for 539,0000 in May. Our neighbors kept insisting that our house was worth much more. We told them that we had it appraised by an appraiser at the credit union where my wife worked and that the value was based on comparables that had been sold in the last six months near our home. They still insisted that we were selling it too cheap. We ended up selling it in July for 530,000. I told my DW that there would be a day that our neighbors would realize that we were right and they were wrong. On Saturday, I talked to a friend who lived a few houses from us in San Diego. He mentioned that he had talked recently to our real estate agent and that our house was the last one to sell in the neighborhood and that many sellers had cancelled their listing. As this LA Times article points out, many sellers are taking their homes off of the market because they think their home is worth more than what buyers are willing to pay. This is exactly what is now taking place in our former neighborhood.

 

[mathjak107]

my associate at work was asking 1.2 million here in huntington new york ,after 1 year of no action she finally got a buyer at 910,000

 

[mathjak107]

in my own area here in bayside queens there are open house signs on almost all corners, some even have more than 1 per corner.

i told my wife we should stop in at a few and if we like it even though we really arent interested in buying we should throw out some real low ball offers. Heck for the right price i would do it.

its not that their arent buyers, there are but it takes the right price. sellers are still pricing like housing was rising every year by 10% or more.

unfourtunatly markets have no mememory

 

[Mr._johngalt]

have no mememory

Sounds like a girl I dated in high school. She filled out later though.

JG

 

[Mr._johngalt]

my associate at work was asking 1.2 million here in huntington new york ,after 1 year of no action she finally got a buyer at 910,000

No "meltdown" here that I can see, but even when things were hot
this summer I wouldn't call it "outa control". Anyway, a couple of new neighbors came in about a year ago. One built a new house and one
rehabbed a "junker". When done they both listed at once at what I knew
were crazy prices. Hoping to get lucky I guess. They still sit empty. One price has been dropped 40% (no kidding). OTOH, both of them started
around double what they should have listed for. Interesting the realtors
couldn't talk them down a bit.

JG

 

[obryanjf]

We are moving from eastern pa. Our house was under contract in 6 days, at just over asking. I paid 158k in '96 and will close at about 285k. in our case we are moving to a different geography and will buy 50% more sq ft + 3 times the yard for 15% less(237K).

Unless these folks are moving down in house or renting, flipping to the same geography I think is mis-guided. Sell high, buy high. Also transfer taxes, realtor fees, moving, mortgage, etc tend to eat up a large portion of the gains.

job

 

[73ss454]

Listed my house on Long Island NY in April at 679K as per 3 diff. agents.

After no offers for 5 months and lowering the price each month we accepted an offer of 570K.

Today we are having a tag sale and watching the memories go out the door for next to nothing is painfull.

A few more weeks and were off to Fla.

 

[mathjak107]

Sounds like a girl I dated in high school. She filled out later though.

JG

Thanks for the mammories