So is the sale of my home hopeless? (South Amboy: for sale by owner, attorney) - New Jersey (NJ) - Page 4 - City-Data Forum

BobDCaterino · 08-09-2007, 10:08 PM

The old Italian way to sell a home is to buy a small statue of St. Joeseph and bury it in the front yard. You will sell within the week.

Shanlynn1012 · 08-10-2007, 05:49 AM

Buried the statue over a month ago, pray to it every single day!
Our home is newly painted in veryneutral colors (everyone how comes through even comments on it) New Neutral carpets and kitchen flooring. I put 90% of the toys away anytime we get a looker, counters are empty too jsut the coffee maker. We just do not have enough lookers. Over the weekend 2 called an made appts and two didnt show. Not very nice. Oh yes we have just landscaped the front with new rocks, & trees it loosk pretty good.
Thanks for all the tips. Keep the ideas comign I truly appreciate all the input.
Thanks

scatman · 08-10-2007, 06:09 AM

What are your property taxes? And how much do they go up every period of time?

jenne03 · 08-10-2007, 06:32 AM

You know what..this is how it is right now. My house is also up for sale and been on the market for a month and a half. I went on realtor.com and saw there were 70 other houses on the market in our price range. You just have to hang in there as hard as it is. With all the subprime mortgage company issues...i wonder if that could also have a trickle down effect?? First time buyers who have trouble getting mortgages can't buy a home for say 175,000. The person who is selling their home for 175,000 can't sell it because there are no buyers and they can't buy their 250,000 home they want. So the 250,000 home sits there and those people can't buy their 350,000...and so on.I am also a buyer..or will be when my house sells. So I also sit here just waiting so I can move on and buy my house.

I know price has a lot to do with it...but it isn't the only thing. It sounds like you have done everything you can ...staging wise...which I know that is a big thing now..but I am still not convinced. I have been told not to have any pictures up so people can imagine themselves in your home. But I have also been told a lot of people like seeing who lives in the house. I know I always look at pictures!

I think people are taking their time if there is a lot of inventory...they are going through A LOT of houses. We are lucky because we don't have a time frame for our transfer. It stinks trying to keep the house perfect and being in limbo though. I think if you have a time limit..then that is when you gotta think reduce. But it's a bad seller's market...You just have to hang in there.

Sorry to hear those people didn't show up. I think that is completely ignorant. I had it happen to me. I have 3 kids and 2 dogs that I have to get outta the house. I have always gone through all the houses I have made appointments for out of respect for how hard it is to have to get everything together and get out of the house.

Good luck and hang in there ! You are definitely not alone sitting there on the market!

Shanlynn1012 · 08-10-2007, 06:44 AM

At least I am not alone. I have a one yr old and a dog so everytime someone says they are coming I take everyone out and drive around. I would never say no to a visitor. LOL The other night we had someone come jsut as I was about to serve dinner to ten people half of them being children. We all waited out side it was kind of funny. We are so stupid because we bought our next home and it will be done in Dec. When we bought we had no idea what a crappy market we were in. Like i mentioned in the fall our home appraised for 300k so we figured we could get around there, not looking like that at all now...
We have had people interested but they actually can afford more and are looking at larger homes in the mid threes and making real low offers, i can not compte with that.
Good LUck Everone

mbrown29 · 08-10-2007, 08:52 AM

When I was selling my house, we decided to rent an apartment until it was sold. I didn't want to stuck with two mortgage and have so much stress about buying and selling at the same time.

You are going to just have to hang in there and realize that it will sell, but it might take some time and patience. There is a buyer for every house. I have my neighbor who is selling her home and she had it on the market for a total of 2 yrs., with different realtors. She started at $430,000 and as of today is priced at $349,000.
I don't know what is going on with the market, but now that I am a buyer, I hope it (prices ) will keep coming down....

Good luck with selling your home.

emarts · 08-10-2007, 11:49 AM

I read a book about selling a house in 5 days. But you really have to have the guts to go through with it. Basically, you have an auction. Advertise in the local papers on Monday that the house will be auctioned off on Sunday. And that you will be showing it all week. Start the bidding really low. use the Round Robin method of auction. The house will sell at market value.

Of course there's more to it than what I just described. But it's something to think about. Sorry I can't remember who wrote the book, but it was about 10 years ago when I was selling my house. We were going to do it, but our realtor found a buyer sooner than we expected.

newtothis · 08-10-2007, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shanlynn1012

Buried the statue over a month ago, pray to it every single day!
Our home is newly painted in veryneutral colors (everyone how comes through even comments on it) New Neutral carpets and kitchen flooring. I put 90% of the toys away anytime we get a looker, counters are empty too jsut the coffee maker. We just do not have enough lookers. Over the weekend 2 called an made appts and two didnt show. Not very nice. Oh yes we have just landscaped the front with new rocks, & trees it loosk pretty good.
Thanks for all the tips. Keep the ideas comign I truly appreciate all the input.
Thanks

There is one buyer for every home! Your story sounds like mine did ( we sold our home ) Thank God ( not to mention St. Joseph )
*May you be blessed*

"St.Joseph, foster father of Jesus, pray for us. Saint Joseph, patron of a happy home and safeguard of families,pray for us."
If this does not help sell you home, I hope at the least it made you smile.
*good luck*

Onizuka · 08-10-2007, 02:25 PM

"Keep hanging in there" is just about the worst possible thing you could do. You'll just keep watching your house price go down in value.

If you NEED to sell, just drop the price and get it over with. Waiting around for some non-existent sucker to come around and pay you more than your house is worth is only going to cost you money in the long run. House prices will not recover in the next few years. They will only be going down. Read the news. Lending standards are going up, liquidity is going down, rates have been going up. All this means is that house prices will be dropping.

If you don't need to sell, take your house off the market and just sit tight for a few years until the market recovers. You're just wasting time.

shelly2 · 08-10-2007, 02:54 PM

We hired stagers before planning on listing our house. They were brutal. The suggestions were actually pretty helpful however. We've been in our Hunterdon County home for 14 years and apparently never tossed anything. We had to do several dump runs and give clothing from bulging closets away to Goodwill. We powerwashed our house and deck and trimmed all shrubs. We painted the kitchen and two story foyer. We rented a storage facility and stored what we couldn't part with. We're talking with a realtor and still don't have the guts to list our house. The market is horrible here and we don't have to move..however our house looks better and when the market gets better at least our house will look better too. We've looked at houses to buy when we do list ours with a realtor and the ones that we loved were spotless and neutral in decor as well as nicely landscaped. We're trying to get our house in that condtion too.
Don't give up. Several homes in my neighborhood have sold in the past several months all in the $590,000 to 680,000 range. Our realtor is discouraging us from asking that much, so I think we'll wait the market out since we don't have to sell. If you can afford it, a professional Stager really helps IMO.