It's been a while since I posted about our efforts to sell our house. Here are the basic stats after 38 days:

• 11 Private Showings
• 2 Public Open Houses: 8 families
• 1 Private Open House: 12 Realtors
• Original Asking Price: $249,000
• Current Price: $239,000
• 1 Offer (rejected): $208,000

After we rejected the offer for what we deemed too low a price, we went through a period of two weeks with no showings. That drought ended this weekend when two families came by on Saturday afternoon.

Through this process, Molly and I have had HUGE mood swings. 2 weeks ago, it looked like we might have competing offers, and have the house sold and closed by early November. We we're excited, but nervous. Now reality has set in. As we head into the holiday season, we expect action to slow down. I would not want to buy a home between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Our agreement with Edina Realty runs for six months. If at the end of that time frame, we do not have an offer we're willing to accept, we will evaluate hiring a maintenance service for the house, and sinking $20k into new furniture and remodeling (i.e. we stay put). The kids would prefer this decision. As we own the home free and clear, we are not forced to sell. 

See other blogs posts from this series (selling a house in a rotten economy).

Our house!

We hit 21 days on the market this past Friday, and received our first offer for our home of 25+ years. If you've read other posts in my series of "Selling a House in a Lousy Economy", you'll understand we were convinced to lower our price $10k after 10 days, and this generated a ton of traffic through our house (during the past 2 weeks, only Tuesday and Friday did not have at least one showing). The end result was one low ball offer. Someone offered us $207k; our original price was $249,900 lowered to $239,900.

This evening over dinner my wife and I discussed the implications of this activity. If one pays a 6% real estate fee, other closing costs and moving costs … why not just sink $25k into some remodeling of our present home. We own it free and clear. It's a nice house. 

Our plan is to purchase a town home, with a monthly association fee. I wonder how much a yard / snow removal service would be for our present home? These are the questions one starts to ask. Is the disruption in our lives worth the aggravation. Is the present value of all the costs to move positive? We don't know. The end of our dinner conversation tonight was to tighten up the amount of money we would ultimately accept for our home. 

$239,900  (our house!)

I love my dog. She's a bassamation named Spot (cross between a basset and a dalmatian). Over the past few days she's become my "al fresco" dinner partner. You see, we've had a flurry of real estate showings of our house, and always at dinner time. Thus, my question of the day … what should Spot and I have for dinner this evening? Where would you take your dog out to dinner (and Cyrus that cat, and Molly the wife)?! 

Here's one of my favorite photos from many moons ago. Spot is helping me rake up the Fall leaves! My hair is now white these days to match Spot's fur! 

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See the other posts from Selling Our House in a Rotten Economy.

Hi folks. Molly and I are going to be aggressive about marketing our home. We are 13 days into the process, and we have decided to drop our home's price by $10k. Although we believe we have one of the top homes in the neighborhood, we don't think it's wise to be the top priced home. We gave it the old college try at $249,900, but now a price cut in time for the weekend. Our Realtor from Edina Realty originally suggested a $5k price drop, but we all agreed in the end to the $10k number.

Here are some comparable homes from the neighborhood. What do you think? We're we smart? Dumb? A few years back our home would have sold in the $300k to $325k range.

 Home #1: $234,000

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Home #2: $249,900

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Home #3: $239,900

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Home #4: $237,900

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Home #5: $239,900  (our house!)

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See other posts: Selling a House in a Lousy Economy

You may remember that I had stated, no Open Houses for the general public. Like always I reserve the right to change my opinion. While I'm still very skeptical, given all the data I've been presented, that an Open House will sell a home via that event, it does "Maximize the Map". If you believe that most home shopping is done online, one needs to become search engine relevant. Obviously we're not talking Google, but rather how our property displays via the private databases for Edina Realty and the local MLS. 

My goal, is to Maximize the Map. With so many properties for sale, I need to draw attention to our home. Thus, I need to take actions that draw visual attention while the online shopper is engaged in research. For the first seven days of a listing, you get a "new flag", open houses also give you a visual flag. Take a look at the screenshot given below (click to maximize) and you'll see what I mean. Listings with "flags" jump out at you.

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See other posts: Selling a House in a Lousy Economy