No-spin on Today’s Real Estate Market

“Our House is a very, very fine house…” (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Our House)

With no cats in the yard! And, no dogs in the house! (Allergy suffers have no fear) .

But the yard is fenced if you are fortunate to have a furry friend.

The roof is new on the house and garage plus a “walk up” attic (how novel)

One bedroom or optional office down and two up.

A great size bath up and a nice one down.

The roomy kitchen has windows round the breakfast nook to the let sunshine in.

There’s a sun room off the kitchen that leads to a backyard deck.

New carpet and flooring with fresh new paint throughout, tastefully chosen colors I might add.
he neighbors are friendly and the street is dead end thus low traffic for buyers with kids.

Location, location, location…
Good schools, close to highways, downtown, hospitals, shopping, bus lines and churches.

We cleaned and cleaned all the gunk the previous owners left behind. Oh! And the stench…you could smell it from the street with the doors open. It took a putty knife to scrape the grease off the cupboards. The heating vents were sand blasted to remove the years of painting over old paint and filth. They abused this elderly house (75 years plus) they called their home and had the audacity to leave behind a Swiffer Mop! Like that was going to do the trick! The stench and filth in the carpet could only be resolved by totally ripping it out. I shutter to think what was there.

Now the house is not perfect but which ones are? We built our home with a watchful eye yet the builder still made mistakes. Our neighbors moved into their new home and within the first few months their roof leaked…the builder said it was an “Act of God”! Now I ask you, what does God have to do with faulty workmanship? (Wasn’t someone in his family a carpenter?) Everyone has an excuse. I had a wise college professor that said, “Excuses only satisfy those who make them.” How true, how true, especially, in this business!

There was a potential buyer who brought in their “contractor” relatives. They complained that the basement walls weren’t straight! Mind you part of the basement is field stone, probably a coal bin when the home was built. My reply to that comment was something like, “The house is 75 years old, what do they expect?” How many 75 year old people do you know stand up straight?

Truthfully, this market STINKS if you are a seller. If you are a “qualified” buyer the market is YOURS. Pick up the newspaper, a magazine or turn on the TV. All the coverage is about the foreclosures and the fraudulent mortgage brokers. And, those people that took those Adjusted Rate Mortgages…their bubble just burst! Those mortgage brokers are still out there. One told us they had a “qualified” buyer but we (the sellers) would need to pay their taxes for 2 years AND their closing costs? Hello! If they can’t afford the taxes now (and taxes do go up it is a fact of life) at the end of 2 years are they going to ask us to pay them again?

We had an offer that the realtor attached a letter telling us everything they believed was wrong with the house. Okay, as a seller you expect that. But the condescending, insulting tone used is not the way to ingratiate yourself with a seller. I honestly think if we had told this broker and buyer we would tear the house down and build them a new one to their specs…they would not have been happy. We always hear the real estate agents/brokers talk about “educating” the sellers, what about buyers? Maybe a course in how not to piss off the sellers! After this experience I think Interpersonal Skills 101 would be beneficial but that is a whole other chapter in my book.

Friends of ours just sold their home and well below market as they wanted to get it sold and move on. They had a potential buyer come in with a mile long list of “cosmetic” things they wanted done. Actually, demanded might be a better word. For example they wanted all the carpet replaced in their chosen colors of same or better grade! Mind you some of the carpet was only a year of so old and the rest was in fine shape and not repulsive colors. My friend asked me what happened to the days when you looked at a home and said, “Well we can live with that until “we” can replace it? I told her I thought those days were on the verge of extinction.

The real estate market has two phases; Good and Bad. When it is good it is very, very good but right now it is just plain UGLY! Everyone, sellers and buyers, are feeling the pain.