So much better!

I am really enjoying this renting plan, more than I did the selling challenge.  People coming through to look at the house are so much more complimentary about the house.  I also like the fact that I don’t have to leave as people come through; in fact I get to show them around.  I can answer questions, tell them about the neighborhood, get a feel for what they want, and provide info.  It’s great!

We’ve had more people coming through with an eye to rent than we did people wanting to buy.  It really is a crappy market to sell, but because of that, there are a lot of people who want to rent.

We haven’t actually rented it to any one yet, but with all the interest, I’m sure it’ll happen pretty soon.  Wouldn’t it be funny if we actually had to choose between two renters?

Whatever!

I must be getting really burned out over all this house showing and stuff.  Our RE agent called Sat. afternoon and asked if someone could come through.  My response?  “Whatever.”  I really don’t care anymore.  Yes, we had to spend a couple of hours to spiff it up, but I am getting to the point that I think, what difference does it make.  We’ll get it all cleaned up and looking good.  They will come, look around, nitpick a couple of things and leave.  No offer, no feedback.  It’s all rather pointless anymore. Nobody really wants to buy.

No one has any imagination any more.  Who cares what the condition of my house is when you see it.  If it’s a mess, big deal. You are not buying my furniture, and the mess will be cleaned up and gone when you move in.  Look at the four walls, the layout of the house, the size and number of bedrooms, the large backyard with the very nice deck and picture yourself living here with your furniture and your level of cleanliness.  Yes, it’s not perfect, it’s a little dated, and the carpet is a little hammered looking, but if we put in all the expense of upgrading, the price is going to go up accordingly and it will still be an 11 year old house. Take the good deal and then do what you want with it.

Don’t be surprised if the next time I get a call, I say “come on down, but don’t mind the mess coz I ain’t cleanin’ it any more! You’re not gonna buy it anyway, so why should I bother?”

Okay, let’s try something new.

This whole house selling has really become a pain in the, well, you know where, and we don’t seem to be getting any closer to selling. We’re not even getting that many people through anymore.  Soooo…..

We’ve decided to go another direction.  We are going to take out a home equity loan so we can finish our half-built house and we are going to rent this home out.  We figure the rent payments will more than cover the mortgage payments and then when we finally sell this place, we can pay it off completely.

We already have had several inquiries and someone even came through last night. They really liked it, and it was so refreshing to hear them comment on how much they liked the space, and the paint and the kitchen and everything.  We are so tired of people being so nitpicky after coming through, complaining about how it needed to be updated, or they didn’t like the basement arrangement, or the family room was too small, or they didn’t like the paint, etc,etc.  These people would even like to work out a lease to own arrangment, which we would like too. They have a house for sale in another state and are having the same problem as us getting it sold, so they were thrilled to find our house and see that we were amenable to the lease to own option.

If it works out, then I guess we will be moving about the first of June.  Of course, we will have to rent someplace down in the area of our house until it’s finished, which should take about 3 months.  I can stand renting for 3 months.

It’s nice to see that there might be a light at the end of this very long tunnel, at last.

Nuttin’!

Well, we had the second look on Sat. Apparently the wife has already seen our house, but the hubby hadn’t, so he came on Sat. for a peek.  Haven’t heard anything yet, except that they really like the house, they are sick of looking at houses and that they are living with relatives while they try to find a house. Also, I have figured out that they do nothing quickly, so we are just waitin’ around to see if they will make an offer.

While I am sick of showing the house and would really like someone (anyone) to make an offer, every day that passes allows the boys to get closer to the end of the school year, so I won’t have to yank them out early, so it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Where’d everybody go?

Where’d everybody go?  Home tours had been pretty brisk around here up until last week.  Of course, we thought we had an offer coming, so I was glad we didn’t have anybody coming through, but last Sat. was the first time we haven’t had someone come through on a Sat for about 6 weeks.  Then there was nobody all week and nobody again yesterday, (Sat.) Really strange.  We thought someone was going to come through because our realtor called to let us know that someone might be coming for a second look (always encouraging), but the realtor wanted to come in first to measure the master bedroom and bath, which he did.  Then I waited around for the word all day yesterday and then expected some news today, but NADA.  So I am asking, “Where’d everybody go?”

And they’re outta here!

Well, the bad feng shui did the trick.  The Cheungs are history.  Apparently they decided the flowing irrigation canal behind the house was going to take away all their money and good fortune, so they have “left the building”! (Never mind that we have lived with this bad feng shui for nigh onto 11 years, along with about 12 of our neighbors, and only two of those neighbors have had any bad karma.)

Back to the grind of showing the house.  Ugh!

A man did come to the door today after taking one of our  flyers and asked to take a look around the house.  He has 6 kids living in a 2100 sq. ft. house.  Maybe he’ll be back with the wife. One can only hope.

They’re Ba-aack!

I predicted this.  The Chinese PB who made a low-ball offer and then walked when we countered are back, less than 2 weeks after they walked.  I knew it would happen because they really liked the house and I’m sure they went out and did some more looking and realized this was actually a good deal.  7 bedrooms, master on the main floor for their elderly mother, big back yard, nice neighborhood, etc, etc.  I knew they would be back.

Their new offer is not much better than the last one.  $5k more than last offer, but want a $3k carpet and paint allowance, so actually they only came up $2k   But they say they will allow us to rent back for two months with the 1st month free.  We told their agent if they wanted the deal they would have to take the rent-back agreement.

They are doing a walk through today at 3:30 and then we will meet with our agent to look over the offer.

UPDATE:  Our agent called after the walk through and informed me there is a glitch.  Mr. X was not aware that there is a irrigation canal behind our back fence.  Apparently that is really bad feng shui.  Water in front of the house: han how (good), water in back of the house: boo how (bad.)  He is so conflicted about it that he is having a feng shui expert come tomorrow to take measurements and look over the situation to see if the feng shui is as bad as he thinks it might be.

I would laugh if it was not so stupid a reason not to buy a house.  And because it’s MY house!  I swear, if they decide not to buy it because of bad feng shui I am putting a curse on them!  And then I will tell my agent, ABSOLUTELY NO MORE CHINESE, PERIOD!

And another offer bites the dust!

While our company was here last week, we got a knock on the door. A Chinese couple were in the neighborhood looking for another home and waiting for their agent, but saw our house, took a flyer and then came to the door and asked if they could look through. The place was somewhat messy as I was not expecting any looky-loos, but what the heck. They came in and looked around and were very enthusiatic; really liked the place. They asked when we would like to move and I told them honestly that I would really like to wait until my boys had finished the school year. They were up with that since they have kids too. Then the man, Hong, asked me when our realtor’s contract expired. I told him not until May. He said that he would like to wait until then, and then we could negociate without realtors and their commissions. He gave me his number and asked that DH call him. His english was so poor and broken, it was hard to understand him, but that was the gist of their visit.

The next day, our realtor told me she wanted an appointment to take a couple through on Sat. I got the place cleaned up and she came a little early so we sat and chatted until her clients arrived. I was on my way out when I saw it was the same Chinese couple. Wow, guess they really did like the house.

Anyway, to make a long story short, they wrote up an offer and our realtor presented it to us on Mon. night. They offered $14,000 less than the asking price and wanted us to pay their $5000 closing costs.  Yeah, right!.  We countered with $5000 less than the asking price and no closing costs.  We think we are asking a very fair price and have already dropped the price $70,000 from our original asking price and what we could get in a good market.  The buyers walked.  They said it’s a buyer’s market and if we don’t want to come to terms, then they will look elsewhere.  Well, we are not desperate yet, so we don’t have to drop the price that much.

It just p……’s me off, this attitude among buyers.  <Well, it’s a buyer’s market, so any seller should be so happy to give their house away for rock bottom prices and pay for the privilege too by paying the buyer’s closing costs, and we should fall down and worship at their feet that they even brought us an offer.>  Give me a break.  Turn it around a little and if it was your house, you wouldn’t be willing to just give it away. Everybody wants to sell their house for as much as they can get for it, but then they turn around and want you to steeply discount the price on your home so they can get the good deal.

Then there are the people who are just starting to look.  They get this idea that maybe now would be a good time to think about moving, what with low interest rates and lots of discounted houses on the market, being a buyer’s market right now, don’t cha’ know. So they start looking around. Now, mind you, they have not even put their home on the market, they have not talked to a bank to see if they qualify for a loan, and they are not even sure yet what they want, but they are going to go look.  So they drive around and find “ForSale” signs, especially the one’s with the box of flyers attached, and then they call the realtor and ask to set up an appointment.  Now this is all fine, for THEM.  But for me that means a flurry of cleaning to get the place in order so as to impress these people who aren’t ready, don’t know what they want, and still have to sell their house, (in this market, no less).  The chances they are going to make an offer anytime soon is slim to none, yet we must go through the exercise.  May I just say it again, how much I HATE, HATE, HATE selling a house!!!!!!

And a final prayer- will the good Lord please not send us any more Chinese people.  I have nothing against Chinese people as a whole. They are hard-working, friendly and smart.  But they also feel they have to best you and get the greatest deal, usually at your expense. The only two actual offers we have gotten have been Chinese people and they don’t negotiate or budge.  Please send us a buyer who knows how to compromise.

Please, no looky-loos.

Well, the tiling is done and it looks very nice. BUT still waiting on very busy DH to get the baseboards back on.  The tile looks great; the rough walls where the baseboards are supposed to be-not so much.

In fact, there’s a lot of things that still need to be done here to really be ready to show the place, but I can’t seem to get DH too excited about doing them.  And I’m trying not to nag. Really.  It’s just that when I take the time to get everything cleaned up and in “model condition”, I  know that those things that need to be done are detracting from all my hard work.  What’s a woman to do?

Our realtor came over last week and got some pix of the house interior and got them up on the MLS site, so hopefully people will look at them and decide BEFORE they come if it’s really the kind of house they are looking for. 

We have company this coming week and I REALLY don’t want to have to deal with cleaning house and leaving when PB come through.  I think I will have Heidi really grill the realtors who call to make an appointment to see the place as to their clients level of interest.  Very definately prepared to buy the house on sight, bring them on.  Just want a peek, fagetaboutit!  ( Does it seem like I have been doing this just a little to long?)

We had someone come through yesterday. As usual, they set an hour window-between 10:45 and 11:45. What time did they show up?  12:10.  I don’t leave now until I actually see the whites of their eyes.  Makes me crazy!

Picky, Picky,Picky!

Is it just me, or are people just a lot more picky than they used to be.  Maybe because it’s a real buyer’s market out there right now, but I am getting tired of people coming through my house who want us to make all kinds of cosmetic changes.  For example, we had a woman through on Sat.  She likes the layout, thinks the house has nice curb appeal and is really interested, BUT she thinks the stucco on the outside is dated and thinks we should change all the light fixtures and bathroom faucets to  make them more up-to-date.  Okay, remember, this house is 10 years old.  Stucco was perfectly acceptable then.  And the fixtures we put in were fine for then.  Why should we change things for somebody, if they don’t end up buying the house?  That’s expense that may or may not sell the house.  My feeling is, if you don’t like something, make an offer and ask us to come down a bit on the price so that you can afford to make the changes YOU want.  We might go out and change things and you still might not like it because our taste may be completely different from yours.

I complained about this to our realtor and she said she understood.  What we are trying to do is get feedback from the people who come through and see if a pattern develops about what people don’t like or would like to see changed.  If a majority say that they would like to see the light fixtures changed, then we will look into doing that.

It’s all because the market is so bad right now.  There is a plethora of choices out there and buyers are getting very spoiled and demanding.  If they are going to pay out that kind of money, then by golly, the house better be exactly to their specifications and perfect, or they will simply go elsewhere.

We have already dropped the price about $70k from our original asking price, so they are getting a good deal.  If it was a seller’s market, buyers would just be trying to get an offer in before someone else does, and they would be paying full price and happy to do it!

Makes me crazy!