Between a rock and a hard place....

[Katzateer]

My husband has been working in NJ for the past few months and relocating to Aberdeen MA July 20th with the same job.

The girls and I are still in Ohio - trying to sell our house. It has been on the market 5 months and we haven't even had anyone look at it for a few weeks. We have reduced the price twice- it is $60,000 less than what we started at and we can't go much lower.

Now that school is out we need to MOVE!

We can't afford to pay rent for him and our house payments. Can't really afford to rent this house since we need the money to buy in MA.

Anyone else going through a job move and still stuck with a house to sell?

Don't know how many more months we can hang on like this.

It took him 5 years to finally get a job after his employer for 15 years closed the business. Now he has a job he loves and we can't get in the same town. He was unemployed for 1 year. He lived out of town for 4 years and just came home on weekends. Then he got this new job and I thought everything was going to work out. This is a nightmare that won't end.

[DizneyRox]

Unfortunately, as you said, you are between a rock and a hard place. Your agent should be working with you to sell your house. They would know why it's not selling, have you asked them?

We recently sold, house was on the market for 3 months. There were 300 other homes in our area we were competing with and our agent guided us through the process. It's all about price really. And staging to a degree...

All else things the same, price is probably the biggest factor. You say that you can't lower it more, but you also say that you can't afford rent and the mortgage. Which is more important? Our agent exaplined it this way to us maybe it will help.

For example, imagine your mortgage is $1000 a month. If it takes 10 months to sell your house or if you lower it by $10,000 and it sell now, it's basically a wash. If you add rent on top of that, for say $2000 total a month, and it takes 10 months to sell it, you might be better to drop the price $20,000 and be done with it.

If you need to get out, price will bring in buyers. We ended up lowering about 15% from our original asking price. Now, it gets really complicated when you owe more than the house is worth. If that's the case, you may just well be stuck there. You have options, but I'm not sure I would want to entertain them.

Good luck, I NEVER want to sell a house again.

[Disney Doll]

We sold our house last spring and it sold in one week. I firmly believe it was due to all the marketing our agent did before the house was even officially listed.

The agent hired a professional photographer who photographed the house and she moved some things around to better suite the photos. The photographer even photo shopped the pics to give us a green lawn in early March.

Our agent did a lot of online marketing which is where most people start their home searches these days. She also sent out postcards to other agents to get the word out.

Our agent was very honest about what we needed to do: decluttering, packing up pictures, touching up paint, freshening up the flower beds, etc. She was also very honest about price. We needed to sell because we were having another house built and we couldn't afford to carry both. Maybe we could have held out for more, but it was just nice to be done with it. Selling a house is so stressful. Good luck!

[dnickels]

The biggest factor to draw in lookers /offers is always going to be price. I know you say you can't go much lower with your asking price but unfortunately what we want or need to get for our house has nothing to do with what the market will bear.

My grandpa recently finally sold his house after he moved into an apartment. It sat on the market for over a year and a half with no offers (he was dead set on getting X amount for it). He finally lowered his price and found a buyer in short order. No mortgage carrying costs, but taxes, electricity, general upkeep during that time added up.

Another thing to remember is that housing prices may continue to decline*. If you're already asking more than the market will bear and prices continue their decline you end up further in the hole and your house gets priced even further away from competitiveness. Suddenly rock and a hard place has become a larger rock and a hard place.

Either way good luck, but I would strongly look at lowering the price. If the buyers out there can get a roughly equivalent home for $30k less, it's going to be tough to even get them in to look at yours.

*Not financial advice, but I'm a firm believer that housing prices in many parts of the country will continue to decrease until they come more in line with historical price to income ratios and possibly even overshoot that to the downside.

[pink]

If you're working with a realtor and you had a 6month contract with them, it should be up soon. You could either get a new realtor (however, it doesn't mean they're bad, it's just a bad market right now) or ask your current realtor to reenter your listing as a new home wehn they put it back online after renewing your contract. Also, when you do this, put up new pictures. This way people will think it's a new home, it works.

Also, make sure your realtor is doing open houses for you and if you're house is clutered, de-clutter it. It makes it easier for potential buyers to actually see themselves living there. For example: pictures frames, things on the fridge, toys laying around, videos and dvd's exposed, etc. Puts all of those things away for the time being.

Good luck and hang in there. The summer time is the busiest time for real estate.

:mickey:

[Katzateer]

Thanks for the suggestions. We have done most of them. I have all my pictures, etc. packed away and the house is in good shape as far as no clutter.

The price is about where it should be without giving it away, but we will lower in a little in a few weeks.

No lookers again this weekend.....:(

I will get new pictures since our contract is about up - we have been on the front page of the real estate magazine that covers a large area, in the paper the last few weeks, tryed an open house, have repainted and everything is in good shape.

The real estate company is doing all they can and our agent is a friend of mine, so I don't know if it would do much good to change realtors.

My St. Joseph statue isn't helping- may move him closer the the street. We have an acre in the front yard so maybe I placed him too far back since he near my front door.

[DizneyRox]

Unfortunately, the price doesn't appear to be where it needs to be. If you price it in line with other comparables then you're still playing the waiting game. You need to be lower if you want to sell soon.

Remember, you're looking at at least another month before closing, etc, possibly longer if the new buyer isn't ready.

Our agent was also a friend and I made sure that I told them to be upfront with us. I still felt he was a little apprehensive about discussing with us the price. During the process he was very upbeat. After it was over, he said we got lucky. He was getting nervous and wasn't sure if we were going to hit our goal. It's a tough market and lots of folks are getting caugh off guard. When you absolutely need to sell, it's a very tough market.

[Hull-onian]

You might considerting looking outside of Waltham. Waltham is very expensive. Housing prices have come down quite a bit here. It isn't easy to find something being so far away. I did Zip Reality for a while and got a lot of good information from it. When you click on the bird's eye view you can see if there are any highways near the home or airports. Things like that. I know you must consider the school system too. Massachusetts has maybe the best to offer in education. You might consider Dedham. It is more reasonably priced and only a 20 minute drive to Waltham. Dedham offers everything in a town you could want. Then there is Norwood. It's not fancy but reasonable. Keep us informed, we'd love to have you as newest citizens.:yay::welcome:

[teambricker04]

We just got our house on the market a couple of weeks ago. I am at the point that I am not sure I want to move since we have the house looking so great!!!! We had to put a TON of effort into it... new landscaping, cleaning out all of our storage and taking it offsite, painting rooms, cleaning carpet, staging our stuff. It was a ton of work, but I know it will work out.

I disagree that price is the sole reason a house sells. We sold a house in Indy last year... it took 7 months. BUT, our first agents stunk and the only thing they could do for us was price reduce. It didn't sell and we racked up a bazillion bills with my DH commuting. We got a new agent... with better marketing, some minor touch ups on the house we sold! Not even a month after the second realtor had it up. We sold at list price. I suggest checking over the marketing... is your realtor leaving something out or is there information you feel like you aren't getting? If it doesn't feel right, it probably isn't. Get a new realtor.

PS we seem to relocate often due to DH job. I would love to stay put, but Chicago here we come!!!

[crazypoohbear]

1st, I am assuming that you mean Aberdeen MD (Maryland) and not MA (Massachusetts)!
I lived in Aberdeen proving ground before moving to Massachusetts!
2nd. Have you tried putting the house on Isoldmyhouse.com?
I know you don't want to rent it out but that might be your only option until the economy starts to turn around.
What about renting it as a vacation home to people coming from overseas?
I really wish you good luck and make sure that you have St. Joseph buried upside down facing the street, then, when the house sells you dig him up and give him a place of honor in your new home.

[PAYROLL PRINCESS]

1st, I am assuming that you mean Aberdeen MD (Maryland) and not MA (Massachusetts)!
I lived in Aberdeen proving ground before moving to Massachusetts!
2nd. Have you tried putting the house on Isoldmyhouse.com?
I know you don't want to rent it out but that might be your only option until the economy starts to turn around.
What about renting it as a vacation home to people coming from overseas?
I really wish you good luck and make sure that you have St. Joseph buried upside down facing the street, then, when the house sells you dig him up and give him a place of honor in your new home.

I too wondered if she meant where we used to live in Maryland because I'd never heard of Aberdeen, Massachusetts. But it could be out in the Western part of MA, maybe near Florida, MA?