Monday, November 2, 2009

When it Rains it Pours...

Well my knee is still cranky but I don't know if it's still cranky on it's own or if I re-injured it falling down the basement steps on Friday. I know the way I fell it's a miracle I didn't break an ankle and it feels as though I have shin splints on that leg along with the sore knee. If it's not one thing it's another.

Another - the buyers we had for our house in WI fell through. It appears that they had a bankruptcy within the last two years on their record. How they had a pre-approval letter is beyond me and essentially we learned the hard way that pre-approval means jack. If your selling a house and a buyers gives you pre-approval be sure to call the lender and ask if they've even ran a credit check. Now we are negotiating with the guy that gave us the second offer, he gave us the same offer essentially but we can't do with less than asking and I don't know if we'll have leverage with the guy. Honestly I'm ready to pull it from the market for a few months and re-list in spring when things traditionally pick up. If it's wise or not I don't know, wish I had the crystal ball it would make decisions so much easier as there are too many factors to put here when pondering the situation.

Halloween was good - sorry for the lack of pictures - I'll post them in a day or two, we went to a fellow Ukie adopter's house and the kids played and went trick-or-treating. We stayed the night as it's a little drive from our house to theirs and the adults had little treats of their own, however like the previous post says I'm not as young as I used to be -we were all in bed by 10:30 ha ha rowdy bunch we are.

Currently I think there must be close to 10lbs, maybe more of candy in the house. We have the kids trick-or-treat take, Father-in-law brought an entire plastic pumpkin of candy for them when I met him up at the WI house over the weekend, Mother-in-law sent a little treat sack, and they got candy from school at their Halloween party. No lack of sugar here.

To explain lack of pictures, Hubby's job sent him off early this am to Denver for a quick job. He landed at 8:30 or so this morning, drove to job site and left it by just after lunch. He took the camera with him, which of course also has the Halloween pictures on it. I talked to him a little while ago and he was driving to a state park where elk are supposed to herd up for the winter. I'm jealous. Happily it's just a short trip and he will be home tomorrow afternoon. Not an everyday occurence for him to travel in his job so I believe it a feather in his cap that he was chosen, though he thinks it just a staffing question of who was available etc.

Well that's the news that's fit for public consumption!

1 comment:

Diana said...

Ugh!! on the house! We had that happen on one of our offers as well. It is incredibly frustrating, especially since you've now moved everything out.

If you've had the place on the market more than 6 months and have lowered the price more than once, you may want to consider pulling it off for awhile and then bringing it back as a new listing in the spring. HOWEVER, before you do that, carefully weigh the "carrying costs" (mortgage, taxes, utilities, maintenence, transportation back and forth between your two corners of the world, etc.) You may well find it's cheaper (or equal to) to take another little hit with the current potential negotions and just dump the thing than it is to keep the monkey on your back.

Some other less obvious but still tangable things to consider is that vacant homes are MUCH harder to sell than lived in ones. They take a lot longer to sell, too. If you plan on leaving it vacant to sell, at the very least, I'd plan on putting all new paint, carpet, and probably faucets and fixtures in the place. Otherwise, every little flaw and imperfection will become glaringly obvious, which devalues the place pretty quick (and much more than it needs to.) Houses don't like to be vacant, either. They quickly deteriorate, faucets start to leak, dust collects, they lose any charm and personality they once had, and they scream "desperate seller. Make lowball offer!"

One last thing to consider is that insurance companies also don't like to insure vacant houses. Generally speaking, it's a pretty tough sell to get them to continue coverage on a vacant house for more than about 6 months...and when they do, they often really jack the price.

That's all probably not stuff you really wanted to hear, but hopefully it will give you some stuff to consider as you're working these current negotions.