What will the neighbors think?!

[emily_in_nc]

Congratulations, that is great news!

Frankly I'm surprised they agreed to do all that upgrade work. If I were the seller, I'd lower the price before I'd take on doing a bunch of renovations right before moving out. That's not to say I wouldn't renovate before putting it on the market, but once I have an offer, I would not be wanting to drywall, redo floors, or anything of that nature -- by that time, I'm ready to GO.

So happy for you. The stars were aligned!

[Owlie]

we've got it! Snagging our dream house for $5k under original asking price plus >$6k worth of improvements (drywall and electrical in basement, washer/dryer, garage door opener, laminate in entire main level).

woohoo!

[zoom-zoom]

Congratulations, that is great news!

Frankly I'm surprised they agreed to do all that upgrade work. If I were the seller, I'd lower the price before I'd take on doing a bunch of renovations right before moving out. That's not to say I wouldn't renovate before putting it on the market, but once I have an offer, I would not be wanting to drywall, redo floors, or anything of that nature -- by that time, I'm ready to GO.

So happy for you. The stars were aligned!

The sellers are a big housing company here in MI (Eastbrook Homes) and the house is a model home. We will be the first owners, so we're getting a semi-custom home for the price of pre-owned!

[indysteel]

Nice, Zoom. Very, very nice. I hope you have many happy years there.

Are you selling/have you already sold your current house? Good luck with that, too!

[zoom-zoom]

Nice, Zoom. Very, very nice. I hope you have many happy years there.

Are you selling/have you already sold your current house? Good luck with that, too!

Thanks!

We'll be selling our current home after we do some finishing work...the sorts of stuff that were difficult to do while living in it. I am SO thankful that we don't have to list it while we live here. That is such a hassle and disruption. I feel for people who have homes on the market for a year or more and have to clear out at a moment's notice every time a potential buyer wants a walk-through. With 3 cats it would be extra miserable.

[emily_in_nc]

The sellers are a big housing company here in MI (Eastbrook Homes) and the house is a model home. We will be the first owners, so we're getting a semi-custom home for the price of pre-owned!

Aha...that explains why they were willing to do the work. Excellent!

[GLC1968]

We'll be selling our current home after we do some finishing work...the sorts of stuff that were difficult to do while living in it. I am SO thankful that we don't have to list it while we live here. That is such a hassle and disruption. I feel for people who have homes on the market for a year or more and have to clear out at a moment's notice every time a potential buyer wants a walk-through. With 3 cats it would be extra miserable.

And another thing we have in common.

We moved into our new house at the end of Oct. We will be FINALLY ready to list our old house by the end of Feb. 4 months. Oy.

1) renovating a house while not living it in IS easier except when said house is 30 - 40 minutes away from new house (and everything else).
2) paying two mortgages sucks
3) listing a house without 3 dogs and a cat traipsing in an out is a huge, huge plus.
4) spending every single weekend at the old house where all the animals are gone and you have no internet and often enough, no heat, is depressing.

The bonus for us is that the housing market has improved since we moved out, so the delay will likely result in a slightly better sale prices.

Oh, and by the way - CONGRATULATIONS!!

[indysteel]

I sold my house after I'd already moved out of it. It was easier to do it that way, but it was stressful nevertheless. The house was vacant from September of 2009 until May of 2010. We had an accepted offer by March, but it took some time to close. It was a bad winter, and it seemed like it snowed right before every showing. Our new house was 25 miles away so that turned into a hassle. My old house is near my job at least, so it was convenient enough for me to stop by before or after work to check on it. Still, it worried me. But it sold, and I moved on with my life. Of course, this was in the middle of the market tanking and then tanking some more, so I'm just grateful we sold it (for less than I bought it for in 2002, but who's counting?). I'm so glad you guys are selling during an upswing!

[Crankin]

It may be easier, but it goes against all the real estate advice out there. We never had any issues with selling; it did take 4 months to sell our second house in AZ before we moved here, but we put it up for sale a year in advance of our target move date and then luckily, the buyers wanted to wait 3 months, which gave us time to find an apartment for 6 months. We *did* buy a vacant house, the time before the house we are in now, but we were under the gun. We had put a deposit down to build a semi custom home in the same neighborhood and then we sold our house in 4 days and the buyers wanted us out in a month. We couldn't put our kids in the schools without living there, even though we had a P and S. Our house wasn't going to be ready for months, so we went back and looked at the vacant one in the same neighborhood. It was smaller by about 7-800 sq. feet and the bedrooms were way smaller, but when we walked in, the layout of part of the kitchen was eerily reminiscent of our above house in AZ and we made an offer on the spot. In the end, it was a smarter financial move and now I have really good memories of that house.
I just never found selling that onerous. We had a fabulous agent here, who sadly, died a couple of years ago from cancer, while she was waiting to have a bone marrow transplant. When we are ready to down size, I will definitely go to her business partner, although we may try to sell this one ourselves.

[GLC1968]

Oh, we've never had a problem selling a house either (even our NC house we sold in 2008 as the market was slumping) but that's partly because we know how to price, prep and stage a house. Doing so on a working farm with 4 animals tracking mud in on an hourly basis was going to be nearly impossible, so this was our only choice.

Luckily, we bought a new house WELL below our comfort level in terms of cost so that we could afford two mortgages for awhile should it come to that. Our original plan was not to take 4 months to prep the place for sale but we kind of over-estimated how much we could get done on it considering we only have weekends in which to do it. I anticipate a quick sale once we do list it though.

[Crankin]

I can't imagine selling a farm.
We pretty much had the same strategy as you as we priced, marketed, and prepped all of our houses appropriately. Believe me, after seeing houses with dirty underwear draped over an ironing board in the family room, a garage door falling off in DH's hands, unflushed toilets, and DH falling through a rotted back deck stairway, I knew our house would pass a buyer's test without too much work!

[indysteel]

I didn't find selling my house to be onerous. It was really just kind of a hassle is all. The main reason I was glad not to be living there at the time is that I would have worried incessantly about someone letting my cats out inadvertently. As it was, there were several agents who failed to lock up my house after they left or screwed up the alarm. The only real difficulty I faced in selling was trying to price it. My house was downtown and pricing changes on a dime in that area from block to block. Most properties are unique in one way or another and there were so few comps, so it was a bit of a guessing game. I initially went in too high, but quickly adjusted it.

[zoom-zoom]

Here's the beauty of all of this -- when DH's grandma passed-away she left us with a hefty little inheritance (enough that we could buy TWO of this house and still have a little left). So we're essentially buying the new house with cash...and aren't at all stressed about when the current place will sell. We can take our time getting it sold and maybe if it sits for 6-12 months the upswing will net us a bit more than we'd see if we managed to sell it ASAP.