I am not really worried about the housing market.  Obviously with the house up for sale and things ticking up here and there we shouldn’t be worried.  Apparently the housing prices in the region have increased by roughly 5% over the last month or so, homes are selling for slightly higher prices than they were back in May (when we hoped to be on the market but didn’t make it).

The sign went into the yard on the 22nd of July and today is the 8th of August.  We’ve had three showings, and each one that provided feed back suggested there was “too much work to do” on the house – which I find… simply amazing.  The house has been fully remodeled in every room except the upstairs bathroom.  New everything, floors, windows, trim, hardware on doors, paint.  We haven’t replaced the appliances as they work fine.  Nothing is wrong with them.  They just aren’t “stainless steel”.  Too bad.

We have spent a few thousand dollars upgrading the house and people I think are just trying to get us to drop the price.  Not going to do that, so if you want a “flip house” this isn’t it.  Move along. lol

Seriously, if people are out looking for a house to flip, there are plenty of them out there, don’t come to my place expecting to get a rock bottom price.  Sorry.

I guess the anxiety comes from the fact that JoAnne and I have only owned one home, ever.  This one.  For 25 years.  We mostly raised our children here, there are a lot of memories and the kids all look at the house and say “This isn’t the house I grew up in”.  We see the changes, but those who look at it as a property don’t see those changes.  I suspect we will end up selling to a military family – and in fact, I HOPE we do.  They can take this place and keep it as a rental property when they PCS out (PCS is Permanent Change of Station, for the uninitiated).

Since we have never owned any other homes, and haven’t sold any other homes this process is rather “new” to us.  We bought the place back in 1989 and until this past weekend have lived there since.  We moved to my daughter’s house nearby, and I have been back every day, sometimes several times a day, to do yard work, check on the hot tub, clean some more and work on the RV.  Yesterday we had an email discussion with the Realtor about all this.  It seemed like she wanted us to drop our price pretty quickly.  In my research I found that many realtors want to shoot for lowered prices for faster sales on the homes.  This gives them more chances to make money quicker.

While we want to get out of here this year, before winter, we’re NOT willing to drop the price so fast.  We’d prefer to wait on an offer and then negotiate up or down as the case might be.

So… we think that Patience is the watchword of the day.  We’ll try to be patient and see what happens.  Then if things work out, good.  If they don’t, we always have a Plan B now.