Well, here goes. The start to our trek North to Maine, our new home-state. (Brunswick: sale, brokers)

[umograd83]

We are doing the same thing as you - we're culling our belongings (quite liberating) and almost ready to list our home on the market. We have had enough of Maine winters. We have already purchased our home in Florida. (We will spend our summers in Maine.) We worked hard all weekend getting stuff packed and cleaning. The ad goes in the paper on Friday and we will have an open house on Saturday and Sunday. DH seems to think the house will sell fast. I'm a pessimist. We have a three bedroom, two bath ranch on .6 acres in Brunswick on a dead end road. It's really peaceful here, so I'm hoping somebody will want to buy it.

[Cuffler]

Hi all. A quick update on our progress toward the end of July.

The house has been on the market for just shy of a month, now, and we're still here. Since the time we've put our "for sale" sign up on our street, no less that SIX other homes within a mile of ours have also hung out for sale. The "let's get out of here before the ship sinks" disease is now catching and it's evident that more and more residents are feeling the pressure of a lousy economy and poor leadership in Hartford. The writing is on the wall.

Anyway we've continued to pack up and downsize. We're still honing our "move to" area in Maine down to smaller and smaller areas. Our friends in Brunswick sold their home in 6 days (!) and got 100% of their asking price. We're jealous! Prices and taxes here are a big steeper and we need the right family to find our jewel and are a bit more confident in what's coming down the road economy wise.

You'll be the second to know when we do sell. Average home here sells in 42 days. We're crossing our fingers and ask that you do the same!

Rome

[tarragon]

Hope you are bringing plenty of warm clothes for our brutal winters! I love our state, but not our winters!

[Cuffler]

We are actually heading for Wiscasset this weekend to see a couple of homes we were alerted to through one of our realtors up there. Lately weve found quite a few that have begun calling to us. We simply have to wait until we sell our existing home before we can commit to another but we are getting so close! It would be nice if the HHH weather might be gone over the weekend!

Rome

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by Cuffler

We are actually heading for Wiscasset this weekend to see a couple of homes we were alerted to through one of our realtors up there. Lately weve found quite a few that have begun calling to us. We simply have to wait until we sell our existing home before we can commit to another but we are getting so close! It would be nice if the HHH weather might be gone over the weekend!

Rome

Usually I am just trying to make time when I go through that area, but I stopped in at Wiscasset on my last trip up, and I took a walk down Water St to the town landing - it's very pretty there. The girl in the cafe' on Main St said that the main source of the traffic issues is actually the Bath Iron Works shift changes. I am sure the locals find ways around the backups on main street - maybe they can offer some suggestions that might even help with choosing a place there?

[Cuffler]

Hi all. I just got finished copying and sending our paperwork to fire our realtor. AFter 120 days she was only able to wrangle ONE showing. One. No open houses to speak of or any other effort to market our gorgeous and historic home to any of the many buyers in the area. With two months to go on our contract I asked that we terminate and she, reading between the lines, agreed. Whew! We've learned a valuable lesson. We went with her because she was supposed to be the old-home sales guru dragging with her a list of buyers looking for solid homes like ours but it just didn't add up after 30 days the die was cast. In the meantime there were many dozens of homes selling in the price range our home is listed all around us but we didn't even get viewings! Zillow says our listing, too, was one of the most active in the area. Go figure. Believe me when I tell you that we've covered our bases in every way possible. We just needed a realtor who loves to market. Some of them locally have sold over 135 homes this year alone. So, that's what we'll be interviewing in a month or so to begin in January. There has to be a buyer out there for us!

So, we've taken the oars out of the water for a bit and will coast through the holidays albeit quieter than usual. We figured we'd be out of here by then but that's not going to happen this year unless a miracle happens.

We did enjoy BoothBay Harbor in September and the annual "ClawDown". That was lots of fun. We also had a local realtor show us a handful of homes to get a feel for what was there. Very informative and a nice way to spend a fall afternoon. I'll keep you all posted as we regroup and prepare for a second offensive.

Rome

[carnivalday]

Something doesnt add up. How does your house have lots of views on Zillow with only a single showing?

[Northern Maine Land Man]

People scroll down and every listing that Zillow pirated from an actual working broker and passed over a viewer's screen in a blur is counted as a "viewing" by Zillow.

[jdhpa]

Originally Posted by Cuffler

Hi all. I just got finished copying and sending our paperwork to fire our realtor. AFter 120 days she was only able to wrangle ONE showing. One. No open houses to speak of or any other effort to market our gorgeous and historic home to any of the many buyers in the area. With two months to go on our contract I asked that we terminate and she, reading between the lines, agreed. Whew! We've learned a valuable lesson. We went with her because she was supposed to be the old-home sales guru dragging with her a list of buyers looking for solid homes like ours but it just didn't add up after 30 days the die was cast. In the meantime there were many dozens of homes selling in the price range our home is listed all around us but we didn't even get viewings! Zillow says our listing, too, was one of the most active in the area. Go figure. Believe me when I tell you that we've covered our bases in every way possible. We just needed a realtor who loves to market. Some of them locally have sold over 135 homes this year alone. So, that's what we'll be interviewing in a month or so to begin in January. There has to be a buyer out there for us!

So, we've taken the oars out of the water for a bit and will coast through the holidays albeit quieter than usual. We figured we'd be out of here by then but that's not going to happen this year unless a miracle happens.

We did enjoy BoothBay Harbor in September and the annual "ClawDown". That was lots of fun. We also had a local realtor show us a handful of homes to get a feel for what was there. Very informative and a nice way to spend a fall afternoon. I'll keep you all posted as we regroup and prepare for a second offensive.

Rome

Have you checked if your asking price is comparable to recent similar sales? I had an experience similar to yours years ago when I was trying to sell my old house from my new state. It turned out the realtor was trying to get 'top dollar,' as she put it, which meant an asking price higher than comparable houses in the area. Basically no activity for 6 months. I got another realtor who listed it for a similar price to comparable homes in the area and it sold in a couple of weeks. My fault for not validating the first realtor's listing price.

Good luck to you, I hope you're able to make the move soon

[nalabama]

I have no idea of how financially capable you are expecting potential buyers to be. Soon enough, we realized most of them really couldn't handle the down payment AND the closing costs too. We upped the asking price and offered assistance with the closing costs. We had a contract within a week which went to closing.