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My husband and I recently put our house on the market. We have both already relocated for new jobs, so we're paying rent and a mortgage.
We had huge fights regarding the initial listing price for the house. We talked to three different agents, all of whom had difficulty coming up with comps. We're in an undesirable zip code, and most of the houses that look like ours are in another one(same town, same schools). We were in the house about 12 years, and my husband did put a tremendous amount of work into it, and loves it. He likes our new area, too, and we've started looking to houses - I'm hoping he can find something else to be enthusiastic about.
Anyway, the house just went on the market last week, but there has been no response at all. Our agent says things are completely dead in our area. I still think we're overpriced, and want to talk about dropping after a month or so, but every time the subject comes up, my husband gets all defensive. Has anyone else dealt with this, and if so, what did you do? He is so emotionally attached to the old house and the work he did that he is taking everything personally, and won't listen to anyone!
My husband was the same exact way. But I would take him over to the computer, type in Ziprealty or another site and show him how much his neighbors were dropping and asked him do you want to move or do you want to be the last man standing..........for a long long time!!! Give him time he'll come around he is like you said emotionally attached, think about it it has to be hard to face the fact after all that work and time on the house, it's really not going to help! Hang in there!!!
You could point out to him that whether you spend X amount of money in the next few months paying the mortgage on the empty house or whether you take that amount off the price is that same money coming out of your pocket. The question is would he rather get less money out of the house now and be done with the two payment situation or does he want to keep renting and pay a mortgage, or pay two mortgages if you find a new home, and keep you strapped for money for an undetermined amount of time? You could talk to him about possibly finding a middle ground to bring the price down. Maybe you want to bring it down $10k but he doesn't, talk to him about bringing it down $5k after maybe a month and then if there's no action bring it down the other $5k after another agreed upon amount of time. It's a horrible time to be chasing the market, but if it is the only way you can compromise and get more competitively priced then maybe it will work.
My husband and I recently put our house on the market. We have both already relocated for new jobs, so we're paying rent and a mortgage.
We had huge fights regarding the initial listing price for the house. We talked to three different agents, all of whom had difficulty coming up with comps. We're in an undesirable zip code, and most of the houses that look like ours are in another one(same town, same schools). We were in the house about 12 years, and my husband did put a tremendous amount of work into it, and loves it. He likes our new area, too, and we've started looking to houses - I'm hoping he can find something else to be enthusiastic about.
Anyway, the house just went on the market last week, but there has been no response at all. Our agent says things are completely dead in our area. I still think we're overpriced, and want to talk about dropping after a month or so, but every time the subject comes up, my husband gets all defensive. Has anyone else dealt with this, and if so, what did you do? He is so emotionally attached to the old house and the work he did that he is taking everything personally, and won't listen to anyone!
It's going to be very difficult until your spouse can lose the emotional attachment. Once you list your house it is a product that you are trying to sell...and needs to be treated as such...
If you still have the information (CMA) from the agents review and highlight the shortest DOM among the most recent sales. Typically all things being equal, these are the folks who the market says got it right.
If ya wanna sell quick, follow those who did.
You can also call an appraiser and see how much the Bank is willing to extend to a buyer of your home.
My wife just got a contract on a listing where one of the owners has unrealistic expectations for the selling price. They wanted $650K for their 3 year old townhouse. He tried to justify the price because of all the work he put into it by adding upgrades and such. My wife reluctantly took the listing after they fired their other agent because the house was not showing. Similar townhouses in this area have been selling for less than $490K and she tried to explain that when taking the listing. The solution was to let the seller make the decision to lower the price every other week. The agent can only provide the seller with the prices of the houses that are selling to bring them back to reality. Once the price got down to the low $500K range, it started to spark interest with buyers. A contract was accepted last night for $490K. This was the price my wife tried to get them to list at in the beginning. If they listened to their realtor, they probably could have gotten more before the bottom of th market fell out.
OH MY GOSH! Sounds just like my husband!! Still sitting on the overpriced buidling lot since last November. Plan was sell the lot then the house. It brings me to tears to try to reason with him. I just took the lot of the market and there will be no more talk about selling anything. If he would have just listened to reason we coulda, woulda, shoulda a long time ago. But still I have to listen to the ever-lasting droning of "when the lot sells" every night untill I could just hit him over the head with a fry pan!! Why are men so hardheaded???? Beachbound??? you must be kidding!! I need a new name! Maybe I'll come back as "sitting duck"-or "outa luck" in MD.
OH MY GOSH! Sounds just like my husband!! Still sitting on the overpriced buidling lot since last November. Plan was sell the lot then the house. It brings me to tears to try to reason with him. I just took the lot of the market and there will be no more talk about selling anything. If he would have just listened to reason we coulda, woulda, shoulda a long time ago. But still I have to listen to the ever-lasting droning of "when the lot sells" every night untill I could just hit him over the head with a fry pan!! Why are men so hardheaded???? Beachbound??? you must be kidding!! I need a new name! Maybe I'll come back as "sitting duck"-or "outa luck" in MD.
LMAO!!!!! Beachbound, I thought you wrote I need a new MAN! I'm tired and need to go home.
I have a strange feeling my hubby is going to be the SAME way. I'm going through similar problems except it has nothing to do with listing our home (we're not even CLOSE to THAT). Hubby cancelled a job interview because the pay was too low for us (okay fine). THEN he got so aggreviated with the whole job hunting in another state process he decided that was it, we were not going to move, it's too much. He's tired of it. He'll just live the rest of his life in dreary old massachusetts. UGH! You'd think he'd be happy he got a CALL!
here is one way you can approach the dropping price with a spouse. Take a number, that you want to drop to, and say... if the house were on the market all these months and we got an offer for this amount in Feb, would you take it? If the answer is yes.... then say we'll if we do it today we could save that much xxxx in mortgage payments and move on with our lives. let's give it a try.
You might want to show him this article about a group that studies home pricing:
Realtors often warn sellers about the danger of overpricing a house. Now they have evidence to show skeptical clients: research by Jeffrey Otteau, an East Brunswick appraiser.
He found that in a market where prices are declining, sellers who "test the market" with a high price usually end up with a lower price than those who price realistically.
"Houses that are priced right are selling," said Otteau, who shared his results with real estate professionals this week at an East Hanover seminar. "Overpricing extends days on the market and guarantees that you will sell your home for less in a declining market."
Otteau, of Otteau Valuation Group Inc., studied about 4,500 home sales that took place in the first half of 2007, largely in northern and central New Jersey. Most of the houses were priced between $500,000 and $750,000.
....With a high price, the house stays on the market as buyers ignore it in favor of lower-priced competitors. And in an environment of falling prices, a house that sells three months from now is going to command a lower price than one that sells today.
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