Offer on house, but no place to go now (Detroit: foreclosures, rentals)

JGatti · 10-31-2009, 09:18 AM

The same day we received an offer on our house, the plan for our next house fell apart. What the hell are the chances this would happen in the same day? Now we have two options. Turn down the offer and pull our house off the market. Or move to Arizona. ( the only other real option)
What a nightmare. I never would have dreamed this could happen.

wagonman76 · 10-31-2009, 09:39 AM

If you are looking to move, I would say take the offer. It's a lot easier to buy a house than to sell a house right now. Between all the reduced property values, and foreclosures, it should be fairly easy to find something else. Take the offer while you can, you might not get another chance. My opinion anyway.

Sparrow_temp · 10-31-2009, 10:05 AM

Take the offer! And forget about buying for a bit -- find a house to rent. You're then in an infinitely better position if you desire to move for job opportunities.

Bydand · 10-31-2009, 10:21 AM

Same advice, take the offer and take you time finding what you are looking for. Here or AZ, whatever is best for you and your family.

jeanniepep · 10-31-2009, 10:54 AM

Put me down for another vote for "take the offer and rent a house for a while."

JGatti · 10-31-2009, 12:30 PM

Well the whole idea behind selling the house was putting ourselves in the position to save money and free up my wife's work schedule to finish school. This would have been possible with the plan we had. With that gone we could stay here for less than we could rent. So it kind of defeats the purpose of the plan. We might just take advantage of the market and buy again but we're not sure.
We did turn down the offer and sent a counter offer. It was just too low and asked for too much for us.

mich2fla · 10-31-2009, 12:52 PM

while you are waiting for the counter offer, check out the rentals on craigslist.org.

Good luck!

hydigger · 11-01-2009, 06:29 AM

Get the heck out of MI. Its dying, Arizona would be ok but it is hurting right now, I would move some place that is going to be posistioned for a large comeback and MI ain't it. Florida is not doing well as far as jobs go, but it will make a come back faster than MI will, and homes are priced right. Texas is doing well but what person that has a brain would want to live in red neck heaven? I think I would pick a spot that I wanted to go and like the above posts show rent. Remember your home in MI will most likely go down in value even more in the next few years. The auto industry is not poised for any come back soon. And even if it does make a come back I doubt it will be Flint and Detroit that sees the profit from it. SELL and run.

JGatti · 11-01-2009, 07:46 AM

@ hydigger-

Arizona would be our option for two reasons. My wife refuses to live where we have NO family and I have 2 brothers there. The other is that one of my brothers has a 3,500 sqft house we can move into.
Like I mentioned the offer was too low. We just came down to the bottom price on the house, they offered less with 6% concessions. Ha! I'd rent it out first if I needed too.

hydigger · 11-01-2009, 08:26 AM

In MI you are not in a position to wait it out IMO. Most people will be pushing up daisies before there is a turn around. What looks like a bad price today will be a good price in 6 months. I have been telling people this for 3 years. I have one brother that was stubborn and would not take his home price down 2 years ago. Now he would be lucky to get 80k for the home he would not take 100k for two years ago. IMO he will not be able to get 60k if MI keeps free falling. And he is in North MI where things are not as bad as Detroit but still horrible. I will tell you for what it is worth the same thing I told my brother, If you wait for your home to go up in value and let’s say it does in 6 years or whatever the time, MI will be behind the curve of home values. That is to say that when MIs homes go up in value other states will have already gone up ahead of MI. So you will just be spending your $ you made on the already increased price of a home in that place you were going to go. And the price difference may be more so you could lose more waiting. If you take the loss now in MI and take your $ and spend it where that money is a buyer’s market such as Arizona you could be way ahead of the game when things turn around. Being stubborn is not a good move right now. I am watching my brother dig deeper into a hole and the deeper he gets the more he digs in and says he will keep it rather than sell cheap. Well every year has been a disaster and he keeps saying year after year that he should have moved last year. Too late.