For all us future Mainers... (insurance, brokers, transfer)

[jenkaye]

Hang in there Elston we are in the same boat and haven't had a looker in a week. It looks like we are in for a long haul but the weather here is finally great and not such a bad place to be stuck in for the moment, but I just hope something happens before summer!

I think a good shot of rum will cheer you up and I will drink one for you also.....cheers...

Here is to some good luck and some postive thoughts going your way...

[elston]

Things seem a bit brighter this morning. Yesterday was really difficult; coming to grips with just how bad the housing market is and how that might impact our plan to move to Maine. What we were dealing with was the realization that the market is really more than stalled out here--it is dropping --so the realistic price we put on it 2 months ago is no longer competitive with all the other housing stock on the market. And the longer it stays on the market, the less we are likely to get for it later. We continue to have 3 or 4 showings a week but no offers.

We have bitten the bullet so to speak, and will cut the price on Monday, to what we think we might have to take come spring, if we were to leave it as is and patiently wait. If the new price doesnt move it we will just have to hunker down and count ourselves Californians for the next several years. The old song, "Its Now or Never" just started playing in my brain.

[mainebrokerman]

Originally Posted by elston

Things seem a bit brighter this morning. Yesterday was really difficult; coming to grips with just how bad the housing market is and how that might impact our plan to move to Maine. What we were dealing with was the realization that the market is really more than stalled out here--it is dropping --so the realistic price we put on it 2 months ago is no longer competitive with all the other housing stock on the market. And the longer it stays on the market, the less we are likely to get for it later. We continue to have 3 or 4 showings a week but no offers.

We have bitten the bullet so to speak, and will cut the price on Monday, to what we think we might have to take come spring, if we were to leave it as is and patiently wait. If the new price doesnt move it we will just have to hunker down and count ourselves Californians for the next several years. The old song, "Its Now or Never" just started playing in my brain.

elston, the good news is that you are getting showings, some incentives im seeing is,,instead of dropping the price, offer to pay points at the closing,,which is out of pocket monies for the buyers,
good luck!!
and remember, no matter how bleak it looks, it only takes one buyer on any given day to say "this is the house i want"

[forest beekeeper]

When we sold our property in California, we offered to carry half of the mortgage.

It was kind of neat getting installment payments each month in the mail, I kind of miss them now.

Something to thnk about.

[jenkaye]

We have had to drop our price 30,000. in a matter of weeks that's how fast the market was sliding. Now we lowered it and still not much action and we don't want to lower it any more. So we will wait and see what happens.

I was excited to see what we could afford in Maine but we are losing that edge a little and may have to settle on a house we have to fix up instead of one all ready done for us. But we have done that in the past and I love to look at the house we finished with all of our touches. I just hope we can bargin a little in Maine.

I was thinking about doing this...if we get a serious looker offer them 3000.00 of the price right now if they make an offer that day. I like the advise from Mainebrokerman to. We've got to find some kind of incentive for the buyer it's just become that competive with people dumping houses in our state.

Hang in there-

[Elcarim]

Originally Posted by mainebrokerman

elston, the good news is that you are getting showings, some incentives im seeing is,,instead of dropping the price, offer to pay points at the closing,,which is out of pocket monies for the buyers,
good luck!!
and remember, no matter how bleak it looks, it only takes one buyer on any given day to say "this is the house i want"

When you pay points, does that come out of the seller's proceeds or do you have to put the money up front for them?

[mainebrokerman]

Originally Posted by Elcarim

When you pay points, does that come out of the seller's proceeds or do you have to put the money up front for them?

el, yes at closing, not up front..as a buyer, its an incentive to put as much as you can down for the loan (out of pocket) so for a seller to pay for closing costs for the buyer, is sometimes very attractive
the term "points" usually means a value or percentage value ,, of the loan amount.. for example one point(which equals one percent) for a 100,000 loan would equal 1000.

to keep things very clean and simple, you can offer to pay for up to 5-8k closing costs for the buyer

[Elcarim]

We were told by our FIRST realtor that it's standard for the seller to pay 100% of closing costs, which, in our case, will be approx $7500. It's also a point of negotiation if the buyer offers a lower than asking price on the house. Is that normal?

[mainebrokerman]

Originally Posted by Elcarim

We were told by our FIRST realtor that it's standard for the seller to pay 100% of closing costs, which, in our case, will be approx $7500. It's also a point of negotiation if the buyer offers a lower than asking price on the house. Is that normal?

i guess normal is subjective,,different practices around the country,,but yes it would be a negotiating point.

around these parts, there is buyer closing costs and sellers closing costs,,,its not assumed the seller will pay for buyers closing costs,, thats why its still an incentive....

[Elcarim]

Well, I didn't think it sounded fair for us to pay for our agent fees AND the buyer's agent fees. That seems a little skewed to me.