Home owners - what would you do?

if you wanted to move and you couldn't sell your house? lets say that you price it fairly and it sits on the market for several months.

I just watched something on CNN and they had a couple on there from CT whose house has been on the market since 9/05. they lowered the price 2x and said that they may not be able to afford to lower it anymore and will just end up staying put if they can’t get the price they want.

so I'm curious... would you change your moving plans or lower your price?

Re: Home owners - what would you do?

thats a great question -

and honestly - out of, lets say, 10 houses I go to look at, I would say 6 are empty. the owners already moved - and ive seen a few listings go from "for sale" to "for rent"

Re: Home owners - what would you do?

Re: Home owners - what would you do?

Posted by SweetestOfPeas

Posted by Meaghan729

thats a great question -

and honestly - out of, lets say, 10 houses I go to look at, I would say 6 are empty. the owners already moved - and ive seen a few listings go from "for sale" to "for rent"

hey! you're not a homeowner... you can't answer

Re: Home owners - what would you do?

Im going thru this right now only Im in an even worse situation. Im already in contract to buy our house- we found it before we put our co op up- Im starting to get extremely nervous. If we keep lowering the priceon our co op we arent going to make enough of a profit to put down on our other place and the sellers that we are buying our new house wont budge on waiting for our co op to sell, they gave us a really great deal on the house price wise so we are reluctant to back out just yet. Im praying hard, needless to say.

Re: Home owners - what would you do?

Re: Home owners - what would you do?

Actually, this happened to my uncle. His house was on the market, not for that long, maybe 5-6 months. But they already bought a new house!
Now he is renting the house out and making a ton of $$$. He now plans on keeping the ouse as an investment, even if these tenants move out.

Re: Home owners - what would you do?

If didn't have any other commitments and I wasn't in a rush to sell, I'd just wait.

Re: Home owners - what would you do?

My parents just lowered the price on their house, and are considering offering an incentive like a home warranty...

Re: Home owners - what would you do?

If we had to move, I would move. I would rent out my house if I couldn't sell it. And no, I wouldn't keep lowering the price. What good would that do me? I'd have to at least break even, no one wants to lose money on the sale of their house.

I'd also look at why I was moving. If it was "just because" then maybe I'd reconsider. But if I had to move (for whatever reason, and staying wasn't an option) then I'd rent it if I couldn't sell it.

Re: Home owners - what would you do?

I'm not sure I would buy unless I had a contract already, but if I did find the house of my dreams and couldn't sell the old house, it's actually smarter to let the house sit for even a year and not lower.


Think about it: let's say that the mortgage is $2500/month x 12 months = $30K. So it would be foolish to lower it more than that. That is if you can afford 2 mortgages for a year.

Re: Home owners - what would you do?

We decided not to seriously look at houses until our co op sells so we're just going to stay if we can't get the price we need to get.

Re: Home owners - what would you do?

Re: Home owners - what would you do?

Great question. I would say that is you could afford two mtgs - god bless but if you waited this long.....Don't get yourself in a really bad hole. I'm looking to move and we're putting the house on the market. I haven't even agressively looked beacuse I don't want to fall in love with anything. I would stay put, go into contract and take if from there. Things are really scary right now for a seller.

It also depends on why you are moving. If it's to be close to a sick family member then you have to do what you have to do.