What it is like to Sell a House in this Market

First two disclaimers.


1. Both Russ and I know that we are EXTREMELY,EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY  lucky to sell a house right now. While we may be upside down, we aren't nearly in as difficult a position as many in the country (including some of you) are right now, in that it is a loss we can eat ( Even though it is like eating..... well like my daughters eating....anything).  In addition, with the market as flooded as it is, getting someone to look at our house compared to the thousands of others they could look at has been a small miracle itself. So we are extremely grateful to be selling at all, and we know it. If it sounds like we are complaining about such a great blessing, I am truly sorry. It just has been an ordeal, albeit one we are very grateful to be going though, but still an ordeal. 


2. I personally consider my husband (who wrote the following...on his iPod) to be a creative genius. (I guess I'm slightly biased, but still.) Updates on our trip are pending. Probably after the move.


As we are trying to sell our house the buyer clearly has the upperhand. This is entirely literal and is not a joke. We have been selling for months and have finally found a buyer but have had to pay a sum that is not humorous in order to sell our home. In reality it may have been possible to diminish that sum just a little as the buyer turned out to be pretty motivated. Plus he has enough government incentives from the military to pay well over the amount of his mortgage --that's right-- he will probably have $600 left over after using their
housing stipend to cover their mortgage. With prices as low as they've been in years and interest rates in 3's and 4's, they've got nothing to complain about. So we likely could have asked for closer to our original asking price and lost a few thousand less but we have had enough experiences with potential buyers complaining the garage is too small, our (brand new) carpet is too old, or that they preferred the microwave was a different shade of white that we felt we had to take what we could get and err on the side of rolling over like a tea-cup-sized, pudgy, lame, sightless puppy.

Things have changed dramatically since we bought several years ago. Prices were climbing rapidly at a breathless rate and peaked a while after we bought, lingering up there for a while before climbing - no, plummeting - down to more hospitable altitudes. Of course at the time as things were on the up, we were all (at least us, dumb, lay, people) oblivious of the chokingly unsustainable level prices had reached despite - and possibly part due to - the lack of any sign of a summit or shallowing ascent.

Our realtor would let us know of a property that had come on the market and by the time Emily had  set up an appointment to look at it when I got off work a few hours later, it was already under contract. It truly felt like a whack-a-mole game -- a house would pop up somewhere in the state of Utah or nearby states and by the time we turned to look, it was gone and five more had popped up in our periphery to replace it. Before our minds could comprehend what had just happened with the first one, we had already missed 17 more and we eventually began to just swing wildly hoping we'd get something -- anything -- and only afterwards would we consider how viable it was, if it had a reasonable commute, or if it was even within the sovereign United States.

At that time a purchase could have gone like this:

Me: "We'll take it."

Emily: "But the living room!"

Me: "Shh ... Don't let them hear you complain. What about it?"

Emily: "The wall ... It's, you know, missing. And it's raining."

Me: (Water dripping down my forehead and soaking my shirt). "Merely cosmetic. I'll get a new one. I'll buy some spackle and nails and ... um, a monkey wrench ... I'll figure it out. Hurry let's buy before they change their minds."

We would then proceed to negotiate, meaning we offered to pay them a few thousand extra so they would not by some chance reconsider their decision to sell because they didn't like our hair color or sell to one of the other buyers clamoring outside the front door.

Whereas now we as sellers worry our potential buyers may have very important issues with our taste in hinges. They have weeks of luxurious time to toy with us and ponder on whether they are satisfied with the brand of drywall screw used in the home's construction while we ponder if we're willing to unscrew them all one at a time by hand and replace them free of charge, throwing in a new oven as an apology for the inconvenience we've caused.

We finally did sell and it cost us thousands of dollars more than just a little pride. Thankfully our buyers were great and didn't ask for a thing. Not even an inspection. One nice thing (for us anyway) about the current economy is nobody wants to sell till they can recoup what they paid, except those who can no longer afford where they are staying. So our buyers were just happy to find a home in salable shape and without having to wade their way through a short sale.

And I can only hope this means now, it's our turn to ask for the drywall screws we have always dreamed of.