We are thinking of upgrading to a bigger home with a yard (currently live in a patio home with no yard). They say it's a buyer's market right now as housing prices are low. Our main concern is selling our home. I have a feeling it will take a long time to sell our house. Anyone know what the average time of a house on the market is before it sells? Should we wait until market gets better to sell?

TIA.

Our house took around 8 months to sell.

Do NOT use Jen Zweiacker as your agent. She was awful. Would not return emails or phone calls before or during the sell.

Took 2 months, but this was right before the tax credit expired.

Can you carry two mortgages?

The good news is that the next 4 months are the very highest part of the selling season.

The other good news is that when the market is down, it is a good time to buy bigger (yeah, your smaller place is hard to sell, but so are the bigger places, and the difference in price between the bigger places and your smaller place will never be less than when the market is down).

The bad news is that if you don't sell your place over the next 4 months, you'll likely own it until the next summer.

Price it right right now though, and you can get it sold.

Without meeting with you, seeing the house and knowing your situation, it is very hard for me to answer your questions.

There are many many questions I would ask to answer your question better and in more detail.

Where is your home located? How long have you lived their? What do you owe? Why are you wanting a bigger home and yard? Etc., etc., etc....

If you would prefer to talk in private, my email address is ryand@bcrbcs.com. I would be happy to meet with you and answer any questions you may have.

Good Luck!!

Call Margie Stibora and have her come out and consult with you. Her input and guidance was invaluable to us as we made all our decisions. Gather all the info and look at your options. If your house sells, you have your pick of homes to buy! Good luck!

Since its a buyer's market, if you're upgrading you'd stand to "save" more than you'd be "losing" with your sale. Theoretically.

Time it takes to sell depends on 5 billion factors, but price and features vs. others in your market are by far the most important right now. For the most part, if you're able to move a property right now it means you were willing to undercut the market.

Greatly depends on where your existing house is.

Wife's house went on the market and the forth person to look at it (online no less), made a cash offer. Sold the same day for several percent more than her asking price (and significantly above appraised value). If its near campus they are moving like hotcakes now.

[This message has been edited by jimmyb (edited 5/2/2011 3:10p).]

My house in Copperfield sold the same day the realtor stuck his sign in the yard.

You just never know.

[This message has been edited by AggieBB (edited 5/2/2011 3:28p).]

You could always list your current house for sell - see what the responses are. See if you get any offers and then look for a house. That's what my husband and I did and it worked beautifully!

Our house was on the market for almost three months before a contract was accepted on it. We close this week. The timing couldn't be any better actually cause we close on our new home this week also.

Put your house on the market. Look around find something you like.

Ask to do a contingency contract(basically, your house sells you buy, if not then you dont)

That what we did, builder gave us 3 months to sell (worked out good as builder needed to live in this new house for 3 months while his was being finished)

quote:

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My house in Copperfield sold the same day the realtor stuck his sign in the yard.

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We bought our house in Copperfield before a sign went in the yard. I was waiting for it to be for sale.

lhl9844, The previous posters are right- there are many factors that contribute to a home's time on the market. I'd be happy to evaluate your home and compare it with similar homes that have sold and are currently listed to give you a more thorough picture of the trends in your neighborhood.

Feel free to give me a call!


Sponsor Message: margiestibora.com | 979.412.4401 | Need a Realtor? Give Us a Shot!

If you have the money for a downpayment on a new home, without selling your existing home, go ahead and put your home up for sale and go looking. If you find what you want, buy it. If your house doesn't sell, consider renting it. You may well not cover all your old mortgage if you rent, but it will likely help and give you a year's worth of cushion. Food for thought. Best wishes and let us know what you decide.

I am happy to see this thread. My husband and I have been considering the same thing. We could get a house in a new neighborhood and pay about the same we are paying now. If our house sold, we could also pay off our last debt and still have downpayment money.

aggiebb was your house on somerford or waldham grove by chance?

Nope. Middlebury.

You'll never know until you try. We put mine on the market last June. Everyone (including the Realtor), said it would take a year to sell and our asking price was too high.

We didn't want to move right away so we stuck to our guns with the high price. We left town on a Thursday. Realtor called with an offer on Tuesday. We said no and remained firm on the asking price. The next day they offered the price we were asking. We accepted only if the buyer would give us four months to look for another home. They agreed.

We played "hardball" with the new home and got it dirt cheap.

You never know until you try it.

BTW our Realtor (a big name in BCS) was horrible. The buyer's Realtor was first rate. Our guy was virtually no existent and didn't even show up at the closing. He sent his gofer.

N/M, just idle curiosity.

[This message has been edited by techno-ag (edited 5/2/2011 10:08p).]

How is the market in your neighborhood. This is a gross oversimplification, but if there are too many houses available where you are that's a bad sign for you.

We'd love to sell ours and move into an apartment, but I wouldn't think about putting on the market while the house next door has a For Sale sign. Two houses for sale side by side does not look good.

That last sentence really ought to be DO not look good since "houses" is the simple subject, but it just sounds off.

just someone buy our house in castle rock...if it doesn't get an offer soon...

[This message has been edited by lostdog (edited 5/2/2011 11:04p).]

[This message has been edited by kel7298 (edited 5/3/2011 12:04p).]

quote:

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Call Margie Stibora and have her come out and consult with you. Her input and guidance was invaluable to us as we made all our decisions. Gather all the info and look at your options. If your house sells, you have your pick of homes to buy! Good luck!

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I could not agree more! Sign was in my yard for about 2 weeks before our first offer came in. Just don't get greedy when deciding an asking price. Margie is great!

As a local Broker/Realtor and a home owner, the first thing I would suggest and do is to get your home in tip top showing condition. Take care of any visible repairs, order a seller's warranty to cover issues that could come up during inspections or during the listing period so that you can have them fixed immediately. Next, price it right with sold comparables - active listings are a good resource but do not hold as much weight as sold comparables. You will allow room ontop of that for negotiations within a reasonable range (remember it has to appraise). Good news is, typically, the list price and sales price do not differ that much in our area. I have not seen over 5% in a while (unless a REO/foreclosure or your home is over 400K). Depending on the price range of your home, keep in mind you may get a buyer wanting concessions like seller contributing to closing costs.

Yes, seller's will take contingency contracts, but not all. Most will consider contingency contracts in the slow, non-selling season. When you get into this the summer months, the fear of your home not selling will weigh in the minds of the seller as they could be stuck with a home in the off season should your home not sell quickly. So, considering all, your best focus is on your home and getting it listed as soon as possible.

Much luck in your buying and selling!

Sherry Perry
979-229-7254

[This message has been edited by sherryperry (edited 5/4/2011 1:13a).]

[This message has been edited by TexAgs staff (edited 5/4/2011 7:44a).]

lostdog- you might think about lowering the price of your home. Our home sold about 2 weeks after lowering the price. I thought our house was overpriced from the start but it's the price our Real Estate agent suggested. Obviously she didn't know the market.

Well, we decided to give it a go. Nothing lost if it doesn't sell.



[This message has been edited by montegobay (edited 5/4/2011 5:01p).]

montego - that's the Edit Post page, may want to remove that link and replace with this one:

http://collegestation.craigslist.org/reo/2361821127.html

(And I gently suggest adding interior photos and more description to the listing instead of making people email you for it. JMO.)

Thanks Spike. I have the interior photos on the flyer. I don't mind the emails. Thanks for fixing the link.

I meant that some people don't like sending emails to an interweb stranger or don't want to go to the trouble of emailing just to see photos if they don't end up liking it. IMO, great interior photos can really help boost interest, but if a house is lacking photos of the inside, it makes me wonder what's wrong with it. (yours looks quite nice from the outside so I probably wouldn't assume that in this case, though!) Just from my experience looking at real estate online and selling a house.

I thought of that after I posted. I will update Craigslist tonight. Our house is great inside. I am worried that I won't find a house with the same upgrades.

Will I need to redo the link here or will the same link still work? Sorry for the dorky computer questions.

You should just be able to edit your post. You might want to keep updating every week or so, and maybe reposting so it stays visible to new viewers. We moved from a smaller house into this one that is less fancy. My old house had all 10 ft ceilings, lots of crown molding, wood floors, totally finished out windows with nice molding all the way around, white mortar, trees...but we needed the square footage! I realized that floor plan was key to our needs (husband = home office, and we have a toddler) and I can add all that fancy stuff later if I want. We do have some high ceilings and crown molding, just not as much. This house does have granite, where I had Formica before, though. Best part - my house payment went down because we were able to put so much down!

I love our house, but our neighborhood is just becoming so rental heavy that we want to find a house where we can stay(retire). Ideally, I would get Blake Cathey to build us a house because we love our house now, but I dont' think I have the patience for that.