Monday, June 8, 2009

House update

Well, I guess it's time for an update for where we are on the attempts to move. It's been pretty slow going, and boring, and annoying. Not great fodder for blog updates, though it takes up all my time so I don't have much else going on recently.

Oh boy, I've really talked you all into reading the rest of this post, haven't I? Do I know how to sell it, or what?? This blog post is just for anyone who's actually interested in our house search, or who has insomnia.

Okay, here's the deal: we found a house we love. It's out in one of the further-from-Boston suburbs, but it only adds two miles (or about 5-10 minutes) to TK's commute. How awesome is that? Pretty much all the houses we've been looking at add more like 30 minutes to TK's commute, which I was not looking forward to. Plus, it's a beautiful house, in a neighborhood, in a good school district. Just what we were looking for. It's not ridiculously large, but it has plenty of storage space and more than enough living space. Technically, it's not much bigger than our current house, but it's better laid out and has an attic for storage. It's a ranch, so the partially finished basement is also far larger than our current basement...more storage!! Have I mentioned storage yet? Yeah, that's because our current house has almost none. It's the one thing that drives me mad with our current house, so I was absolutely drooling at the thought of an attic and a basement, not to mention closets bigger than 2 feet wide! Mmmmm, closets!

But you haven't missed any exciting posts. We're still dealing with the biggest problem: our house hasn't sold.

Again on the plus side for this house we found: it's not at the top of our price range! That meant we had more wiggle room on what we sell our house for. So we took the plunge and slashed the price of our house. We slashed it low enough that I think it's a great bargain. It's hard to tell. I thought our house was pretty well priced before, but obviously if it's not selling, it's not good enough. Our problem is location: our house was certainly nicer than other houses in our town that were priced the same, but the location is on a busy street, so people were picking not-as-nice houses in better neighborhoods. Which I totally get. So we dropped our price, and now our house, in my opinion, is not only far nicer than the other similarly priced houses, but also in similar neighborhoods. But we'll see if anyone else agrees!

We put an offer in on the house we love. They accepted it, but with a kick-out clause. They're leaving the house on the market listed as "accepting backup offers". If they get a different offer, we have 48 hours to decide if we will match the closing date. Of course, if that happens and our house hasn't sold yet, we're out of luck since we can't afford to buy a new house before our existing house sells. So we need our house to sell fast, or we'll probably lose this house, hence the reasoning behind dropping our house price.

We went ahead and did a home inspection on the new house, despite the fact that it's far from a sure thing. We also have to go ahead with a P&S, which means paying a lawyer. So we've sunk a bit of cash into this house. It'll be a bummer if it falls through.

We had an open house yesterday for our current house, and FIFTEEN couples showed up! Usually we only get 2 or 3. So I suspect that people are noticing that the price is really good. Now one of those couples just needs to fall in love with our house. Someone has already scheduled to come back for a second look tomorrow.

It's just a waiting game, and while it's pretty stressful, it's not all that bad in the big picture. I mean, we don't *hate* our current house. We actually like it quite a bit, it just isn't perfect for us and we figured it'd be a good time to get that perfect-for-us house. I know how lucky we are for this to be our problem! And, I firmly believe things will work out for the best. If our house doesn't sell, it wasn't meant to be and we'll try again next year.

But if this house falls through, we're done for now and will take our house off the market. I'm worn out trying to keep a perfect house. TK has been working crazy hours, I'm tired from the pregnancy/chasing two crazy-busy kids who don't go back to preschool until September (honestly, I'm not sure which is the one wearing me out more!), and if we're going to stay in this house, we need to commit to it and get some stuff set up for the new baby.

So that's it. I know. Pretty boring. Don't say I didn't warn you! Here, I'll leave you with a few funny things:

  • We saw a house where they'd paved the ENTIRE backyard to put in a regulation size baseketball court. I mean, they paved it from corner to corner of their lot. Who paves their entire backyard??
  • We saw a house that was SOOO country. I expected a cowboy to jump out of the closet. They had posters up of country music stars. It was really weird. We've looked at tons and tons of house (probably at least 100, plus all the houses we looked at before we bought this house we're in now), and we've never seen anything like it!
  • We saw a house with a horse barn right next door. I want to get out into the country, but do you have any idea what it smells like RIGHT next door to a horse paddock? I do now. That house did NOT smell good!
  • We saw a house where the finished basement ceiling was less than 6' tall. Luckily TK and I are not that tall, but it was incredibly clausterphobic. In that same house, to get to the boiler/heating equip, you had to crawl through a section of the basement less than 3' tall. The homeowner had left a sign to watch your head. We decided against crawling through someone's gross basement, though not before making some Being-John-Malkovich-seventh-and-a-half-floor jokes.
  • Someone called up our agent and actually did make an offer on our house. For $110,000 LESS than our asking price. That is not a typo. Now I know house prices in the Boston area are high, but we're not selling a million dollar house where maybe, just maybe, you could see offering a hundred thousand dollars less. No, someone offered a ridiculously low amount. And they were serious. People suck, and that guy can bite me.
That's it for now. I'll try to update with something more interesting soon. Our CSA starts this week... ;)

13 comments:

Nicole S. said...

Sorry about the house headaches! My mom was a realtor and I heard so many crazy stories about people's weird homes.

Also, we are thinking about doing a CSA thing. There is one I found that I *think* still has shares for this year - this is their first year so I think they are just getting their name out there. Anyway, do you have advice on what I do with stuff that I get but don't really love?? I hate to waste food...

LauraC said...

Well I'm glad you found THE HOUSE but also tough that your house is not selling. Hope it all works out.

I love hearing the crazy house hunting stories. We saw one that was SO religious. As in scarily religious. Every single room was blue or pink bible colors. Every room had at least one cross on every wall, religious cross-stitch, etc. It was hard to describe but as soon as we walked in, we said no and left.

jongirl said...

Mark my words, your house is going to sell this week. I don't know how I know but I have a real STRONG feeling so I think this just might be it for your house-selling adventures. Of course, you realize if I'm right, you'll never hear the end of it! Plus then you'll have to get a MOM-in-a-heart tattoo! TK also!

jules said...

fingers crossed. fingers crossed. fingers crossed. even if you do seem pretty zen about the whole situation.

i love the regulation basketball court story.

bring on the CSA's!

Amy said...

keep up the positive attitude, it will work out, hopefully sooner than later, but it will!
we saw a house that turned their basement into a basketball court, my dh wanted the house soley for that reason..ahh boys;0

Unknown said...

Yay for finding the house! Stopping by from SITS

BPOTW said...

Good luck with the house--I know that's not much, but it's about all we can do for ya!

Anonymous said...

Wow, busy busy! Awesome that you found a house you really like that's a good price. I'll bet the lowered price on your current house will jump start things. Best of luck :)

Donna-FFW said...

Im going through almost the ssame game. We havebuyers, we found a house, now just waiting on the commitment mortgage. Every day its one more day and its so frustrating. You dont know whether to keep packing or not. Then we are expected to get ready in one week because theyve already planned a closing. I have 15 years of stuff and a 10 room house to freaking pack up, have a heart people. Good luck to you, I hope it all works out!

Ronnica said...

Wow...you've seen some strange things. I hope your house well sell soon!

Sheri-ct said...

Moving can be so stressful! And so is wanting to move, but not being able to sell your house! I'm keeping everything crossed for you.

Sheri

just me said...

GOOD LUCK getting that house!

Heather said...

i hope things go your way with the houses soon! i know that the housing market is bad.

we saw a few doozies ourselves when we went house hunting. it is amazing what people will do to a house... :)