The House.

I'm feeling somewhat frustrated about the whole house selling thing. Specifically I am frustrated with our realtor. Starting out, we went with a price (with her guidance) and committed to it. The last week of April we talked to her about going ahead and dropping our price and she advised us not to.

Then April 30th passed and we have had no showings in 3.5 weeks. This past week, she sent "new" data and advised us to consider dropping 5-10K now and then regularly dropping until we get an offer. That is all fine and dandy, but the stats have changed very little since we first put our house on the market. So my frustration is that I feel that we were ill-advised on the front end. I know you can't predict the market, but we even questioned her specifically about fears about the market dropping off after this artificially inflated time of people trying to get their last minute credit from the government.

It is frustrating when you are paying for a service (or at least we will once the house sells) and I feel like our realtor should be doing a better job of advising us - after all she is the expert.

Overall, selling our house has been very emotionally draining. Intellectually I know it shouldn't be so emotional. After all, it is a business transaction, but that doesn't stop the frustration. Hindsight is always 20/20, but there is a part of me that questions if we did the right thing by turning down the low offer... Truthfully we would have come down more and we were surprised when they didn't even try to negotiate. I suppose you live and learn.

I feel like I am mad at our realtor, I am mad at God {I guess I don't really feel like he is in control right now, even though I know he is} and most of all I am mad at myself for not trusting God {or the realtor, or the process}. Daniel and I have been separated for almost 3 months and I am ready for this phase of life to be over. Please pray that something works out soon.

What To Do...

Today we met with two very different realtors regarding selling our house. I knew both from my years at Allen Tate and I also freelanced for both of them.

That being said, it was an interesting presentation. It is going to be a hard decision. Both would be excellent choices. It is hard to know which to pick in order to 1) sell our house quickly and 2) get a good price for all of the work we have done.

Thankfully Sophie was relatively calm while these {percieved} strangers came into our home. It is going to be a bit of a pain showing the house since I will have to make sure Sophie is not here when realtors come by. I feel sorry for anyone who attempts to come into the house if she happens to still be here. Both realtors promised me that we would have warning and confirmation of visits ahead of time so that I could remove her from the house... we shall see.

This morning's realtor was extremely prepared. She really knows our target market and our neighborhood. She has a license in appraisals and had pulled a lot of comps to give us a fair assessment of what to expect. It is very important to her that we be up front with any problems with the house.  She is of the opinion that we should go ahead and have estimates on hand of possible repairs that we might have to do {before these things come up}. We are generally in agreement with this approach, but this is a 30 year old house we are talking about.

This afternoon's realtor was more lackadaisical {but not necessarily in a negative way}. He was definitely more relaxed and not quite as researched. We are on the lower end of what he normally sells and he was very upfront about this. He seemed to have higher expectations for pricing and was more inclined to let buyers point out problems and use that as a negotiating tool. This realtor was also flexible with commission - which appeals to the side of us that is about the bottom line and walking away with the most money.

Positives about our home: The bathroom renovations, the openness and the basement "entertainment" area. 

Negatives about our home: Some of our darker choices of paint color {though not necessarily a deal breaker}, and clutter {we plan to clear out the clutter and simplify within reason}. 

Backhanded compliment of the day: "If your house was in another neighborhood, you would get a lot more for it."

There are other positives and negatives about both realtors, it is going to be a tough decision. We hope to decide by next weekend and have the house listed shortly thereafter. Our main goal is to price our home competitively to move it as quickly as possible.