Selling a house is worse than buying!!

[Greatwhite]

We were torn over selling first, buying after - or the other way around, and decided to buy first so that we wouldn't be stuck with a house we didn't LOVE in the end.

Now we've been on MLS for nearly a week (yes, only a week) and have had 12-15 showings - all at HORRIBLE times when you have kids and dogs to deal with AND work at home.   One showing was actually at brunch o'clock on Fathers day, and I wasn't going to leave the dogs in the van while we went into a restaurant for over priced brunch.  Drive through Burger King breakfasts SUCK, fyi.

SO... We had our first showing on Wednesday morning - the day we went on MLS officially.  Got the call 20 minutes after the listing went live.  Got a call later on in the morning from our agent asking if we'd be willing to diddle with our closing date.  We take the new house aug 1, and I need a week to move my aquarium over.  They wanted July 16.... Sorry, no can do.

Those people rang the doorbell later in the day to talk to us and explain their situation as to WHY they NEED July 16 - and to constantly shovel compliments on us for our house...  We explained why we couldn't change the date to before august, and they seemed OK with it.  Darn, we didn't make their short list...

Well shoot - they booked a second showing, and their agent actually said "expect an offer this afternoon!"... And the offer ended up being $5k over asking, to be out July 16th.  OK.. 2 dogs to kennel, 2 kids to entertain for 2 weeks in a hotel -- and then what do I do with my fish?!?!  We declined the "over the phone" offer.  We (the wife) immediately started second guessing herself. "We won't see another offer like that!" and she was trying to come up with way to accommodate these folks.

My thing was that I work from home, over the internet to my customer's servers in the states - I NEED my fast connection or I'm useless (well, more useless than usual).   She was thinking of going on vacation for those 2 weeks and storing our stuff... Well - unfortunately the guy I have working for me is on vacation those 2 weeks, so i couldn't do that too.

Those folks were crying in their agent's office because they wanted our house so much and couldn't figure how to make it work.  I don't understand how they couldn't store their stuff, and go into a hotel - but being military, they are forced to do door to door moves or they will not be covered by the military $$$ wise.  Why they couldn't store the stuff and then camp out in a hotel on their own dime is beyond me.

I thought after - make it $10k over, and I would GIVE them $5k cash to do with as they wished.  But that was too little, too late - because they bought the house down the road that is the same model as mine, with 1/4 the back yard and nowhere near the updated I had done here.  Boo....  I saw them with the home inspector Friday morning, signing stuff.  I should go over to congratulate the guy for being 2nd best, and demand commission for the sale.

Lots of showings, great feedback - but no buyers yet... Just constant "we should have taken the offer" from the wife.

The common factor that people mention in the feedback is "backing onto Orleans Blvd"... But they don't spend any time in the back yard to realize that 125 feet is a long way for car noise to travel, and the big cement fence and trees cut the sound right down. *sigh*

[smalltownfan]

We were torn over selling first, buying after - or the other way around, and decided to buy first so that we wouldn't be stuck with a house we didn't LOVE in the end.


Lots of showings, great feedback - but no buyers yet... Just constant "we should have taken the offer" from the wife.

The common factor that people mention in the feedback is "backing onto Orleans Blvd"... But they don't spend any time in the back yard to realize that 125 feet is a long way for car noise to travel, and the big cement fence and trees cut the sound right down. *sigh*

I can relate to that. We saw the house we had to have but it took 10 months of two mortgages and expenses (winter time) to finally get our original home sold.

Our house backs onto Jean D'Arc Blvd and we have no complaints. The lot is 190' by 52'. Huge by Orleans standard.There are trees on a berm and the fountain drowns out the sound of traffic.

[Hookup]

Selling anything is hard... people, other people, are evaluating your stuff... and they are NOT going to see the same values that you do on everything... that can create tension...  what is "not big deal for you" might be a huge deal for someone else...

this isn't houses, its anything... that small ding on the side of the 3 year old car is nothing to me, but the buyer sees it as an imperfection when searching for the "perfect" thing for their money...


I do NOT envy your position... good luck!

Horrible that it starts that way too... that's a really rough position!

[az]

I think you had no choice if you had to decide over the phone.

[Greatwhite]

It seems that the house down the road went "conditionally sold" and then back to "active" 2 days later.  Either the buyers had issues with the inspection, or just didn't want to "settle" for that house.  I've asked my agent to look into it, and see whether the offer is still on the table - and if I can come back August 8th(or so) to get my tank.  If that's acceptable, I may just camp out in a hotel for 2 weeks.

We've had lots of good feedback on the house in the last couple days, though...  Lots of interest like "hopefully it will still be available when these people are ready to buy"...  But no one seems "ready" yet.

There has been 5 days of second guessing sending those people packing, and are hoping for some "good" news from our agent.   He told me that he let me know what happened with the evil twin house, because now that house has a stigma of having a failed inspection and is glad we didn't go ahead with things - just in case.  But my house is not going to fail an inspection.......

With my house, if I "got a ding", I fixed it.  There are always things that are "not a big deal" that we live with in a house, and yes - that has become VERY apparent when looking to buy something!!!  SO many issues in a couple houses... yikes!

[Fishnut]

OMG...they actually knocked on your door!! You know you have them over a barrel when...

I would be very concerned with leaving your fish tank in a home you no longer own.  If this is what you decide, make sure there is something in the contract that is very carefully worded with respect to the tank, it's contents, entry for care and pick-up and what happens if it breaks.  If you don't put it in the contract, these "nice people" technically own it, don't have to give it back and don't have to let you in to maintain it or anything.  Put a lock on everything too.  You don't want them to be those people who think a little extra food won't harm anything!!

Good luck!  Don't worry about the single week. 

Not to side track from your experience, but I'm in the process of trying to get a property for one of my clients.  The house is in an area that is being considered for a Heritage Designation because of the archetecture of the houses.  The owners over-paid for it 2 years ago, accidentally rented it to a gang of drug dealers, there was a shooting at the house (nobody died) and the house has been left vacant and deteriorating since the gang was successfully evicted.  To top it all off, the septic system of this house has NEVER been replaced, making it 50 years old.  For those who don't know, the house should be most of the way through it's second septic system by now.

Soooo.....the sellers were going to tear it down to build a mansion but can't now because of the heritage study.  If the property gets stamped with a heritage designation they will never be able to tear it down.  What's infuriating is that the sellers think of it as nothing more than a building lot and have instructed their agent to price it as such.  It has been deteriorating like crazy because nobody has cared for it in so long.    The comps say this pace is $40K over priced, yet the sellers are expecting to get asking price or ABOVE!!  Yes, you read it right...above.   They started asking $40K above their current price. 

It's been on the market since Jan and my clients wanted a 12 day closing.  Helooooooo.....

They didn't even counter our offer.  Their agent is about to ditch them out of pure frustration but he and I are working on making them see the writing on the wall...this is a house that someone has to fix not tear down.

See...this business is not for the meek.

Stay strong!

[Greatwhite]

That sounds like an "accident" waiting to happen.. "Whoops!  I accidentally lit a match.. uh oh - is the gas on??"....

[Greatwhite]

Seems the other agent wouldn't tell my guy what happened with the house down the road - just that her clients bought something else in the end.  So, no chance to revive our little deal.  My fish are safe!

[Fishnut]

That sounds like an "accident" waiting to happen.. "Whoops!  I accidentally lit a match.. uh oh - is the gas on??"....

LOL!!!  What would make that funny is that the owners would then be required to build a house that is in keeping with the heritage designation and be restricted on materials, design and EVERYTHING! They would even have trouble cutting down trees without the heritage department's blessing.

My clients are into this, there aren't too many people out thre who have this level of respect for interesting heritage properties.

[bt]

There can be an upside to heritage buildings though.... sometimes you can get government funding for home renos, if they are done as "restorations"!

[Fishnut]

Yes!  Add to that the fact that I think it would be fun to own a house that had a heritage designation.   There's just something interesting about living in something historical and maintaining it as such...IMO.

[Nerine]

My Grandmother called the Heritage society the hysterical society ....she had sooo many problems when renovating her house and her house was built in the early 1900's...she didn't tell them a few things about it and covered them up! they didn't realize the original hearth in the kitchen was STILL intact, just hidden behind the kitchen cabinets hahaha so she recovered it (left it intact, just hid it!) and she also covered up the bell buttons in the floor quietly shh but had to leave all the original wood and even the ship's chains on the front porch (though they are really cool railings)

Good luck with selling your house!!!!!! The right family will come along for it Crossing fingers it sells quickly for you

[Hookup]

Yes!  Add to that the fact that I think it would be fun to own a house that had a heritage designation.   There's just something interesting about living in something historical and maintaining it as such...IMO.

Agreed...  Though after reading...

My Grandmother called the Heritage society the hysterical society ....she had sooo many problems when renovating her house and her house was built in the early 1900's...she didn't tell them a few things about it and covered them up! they didn't realize the original hearth in the kitchen was STILL intact, just hidden behind the kitchen cabinets hahaha so she recovered it (left it intact, just hid it!) and she also covered up the bell buttons in the floor quietly shh but had to leave all the original wood and even the ship's chains on the front porch (though they are really cool railings)

Good luck with selling your house!!!!!! The right family will come along for it Crossing fingers it sells quickly for you

Maybe I'll wait till retirement...  Sounds like a full time hobby managing one of these. 

[Greatwhite]

Day 10 of being "listed"...  That is 10 days straight, of getting kicked out of the house at least once.  Well, I think we did have one day uninterrupted...

It seems that we are now into the "second showing" stage, where people who were interested, but unsure of a couple things come back to make sure that they REALLY want the house.  We had 4 showings yesterday, and 3 today.  One I KNOW is a "very interested party", who actually brought a tape measure today to check room sizes or something....?

We were told that they were going to get back to the agent tomorrow and "most likely" write up an offer.  I'm eager to get into that negotiation stage, and a little nervous.

I essentially let my agent price this house.  He had spreadsheets and numbers to back up the price they came up with.  There haven't been any comparable houses in my area come up to sell in a LONG time, but they have formulas to take what I bought the house for to current value, and then take into account the upgrades and whatnot.  The price we have, I feel is very fair - and after getting that price, we upgraded the floors (and left that price alone).  I don't have a whole lot of wiggle room as a result...

I think that 2 or 3 of the other showings this weekend were second showings... So when/if we get an offer in, I fully expect those interested parties to be notified to see if they want to play, or not.  I'm fully willing to take the first good offer and accept it, to be fair.  BUT since I got kicked in the nuts (figuratively) by someone buying a house up from right under my hose, I want to give others the opportunity to get in on the action.  There will be a very short window for them to draft up an offer, but at least they won't be caught off guard when the house sells!  (no, I am not trying to encourage a bidding war - but wouldn't discourage it either)

If we get the offer we're hoping for tomorrow, I will have a full 3 weeks to move my aquarium over to the new house...  and paint, change some carpets and start gutting a bathroom or 2 before furniture comes.

[Greatwhite]

So the house was on the market officially for 3 weeks as of yesterday.  We had the offer the first day (20 minutes in, really) and then nothing was panning out at all.  We had a few "we're very interested but want to see a couple more houses before we make a decision" -- that never came back.  There are actually 2 buyers out there today who are very interested and are taking their sweet time to come to a decision.

Well - we gave them fair notice and tried to contact them repeatedly because we got an offer yesterday that we considered very low, since our asking price was low to begin with (compared to other houses in the area with LESS updates).  Our agent had told them that we needed an august closing date, so they came at us with August 1.  Although that is technically August, we MEANT mid-august.  Our asking price was $435,000 and the offer was $412,500.  Their agent insisted that it was a "fair offer" - we thought otherwise.

Countered with $433,000 and August 15 just to show them that although we are willing to negotiate, we are NOT going to drop to their offer after only being on the market for 3 weeks!  AND, we wanted to get the  word out to the other interested parties to give them a fair chance to get the house if they seriously wanted it.  They responded with $420,000 and August 6.  Fine on the date - that's 5 days to get my tank moved, which is doable.

However, since we ARE priced low to begin with, I wanted them to come up a little more...  They had said that they didn't want to play the "$2000 here, $3000 there game" but didn't say that $420,000 was their best offer.  So we accepted their date, and continued that game and dropped to $430,000.  We simply did NOT want to come down too much (secretly we would have probably accepted $425,000... shhh)

They made us wait the WHOLE DAY, since we had a 10PM expiry.  10PM came and went, so the wife & I assumed the deal was dead.  My agent emailed their agent "sarcastically" thanking him for the heads up on rejecting the offer, and said that he had another agent pestering him for a status so that his clients might put an offer in.  BAM - response from that agent saying "We accept!  We are having problems with our scanner!!"  -- and he got the final acceptance document shortly after.  So we sold in 3 weeks for 99% of asking.  Not too shabby!

So I learned that when you're selling a house, remember that you can't add anything to the house to sweeten the deal when all the appliances are already included.  THEY have the money, and you want as much of that as you can get.  Be prepared to be patient, don't panic and jump on the first number thrown out, get your virtual poker face on - and be prepared for some bluffs.  If your agent is good, you SHOULD come out on top.

We had 35+ showings in 3 weeks.  I think we set some kind of record.  Everyone liked or loved the house, but was turned off by Orleans Blvd behind it.  Eventually, someone came along who loved the house as much as we do and was willing to strike a deal.  I don't want to have to go through this again - for a very long time!

The only conditions on the sale are inspection (no problem) and they need 5 days to get their mortgage together.  They've been approved, and have a 20% down payment ready, so that part is not a concern -- I hope.

[Hookup]

Congrats !!  Always a long road buying and selling

[Severum]

Congratulations! I have really enjoyed your selling a house and buying a house threads.

I can't wait for your next thread "Moving is worse than selling or buying a house!"

[Brine]

Congratulations! I have really enjoyed your selling a house and buying a house threads.

I can't wait for your next thread "Moving is worse than selling or buying a house!"

^ like

[Greatwhite]

^ like

Wait for it... The house is still only conditionally sold, with a 5 business day (since thursday) wait for financing to be approved and for them to get the inspection done.  The 5 days ends Wednesday and they haven't booked the inspection yet.

My fear is that the buyer is middle eastern, and with TD cracking down on Iranian bank accounts with the government popping sanctions up - I'm afraid that something is going to put the financing down the pooper.  They were pre-approved, and the bank has a 5 day thing to get everything finalized which is supposed to include an inspection to confirm that the house is worth what they are paying, etc....... but with no inspection booked, that might be tricky.

Can't wait for this to be all done.

Moving shouldn't be too bad, since I'm paying movers to do all the heavy lifting.  We're packing, and I am going to be moving my aquarium myself.  Once we get situated, I'll start a build thread -- for the house.

[Greatwhite]

They got the inspection booked for Wednesday at 1pm. Talk about leaving it to the last minute! 

The bank is pushing to have the approval tomorrow, but it is not likely because their mortgage is more complicated than the average one.....?

[Hookup]

With the Mortgage rules changing Aug 1st in Canada there is likely going to be a rush to "close deals now"... meaning agreeing with the bank the terms before the 31st of July, not taking possession... .this might work in your favor. If the buyer was considering a 30year amortization period they'll have little choice but to take your house or risk having to get into something different at a 25 year term...

maybe something your agent can find out... it sure would affect the details of the sale.

[Greatwhite]

My understanding of the mortgage changes, from what I read a couple weeks back, was that the mortgage had to be not just pre-approved, but completely approved by July 9.  I think that these folks missed their window, and are now subject to the new rules.

From what I was told by my agent who heard from THEIR agent - they are doing a 20% downpayment on the mortgage anyway, so they are falling in line with the new rules on their own.  I am not sure what this means, but "they are not doing a GMAC mortgage, so the new rules shouldn't affect them"??  Perhaps that is why this is more complicated that "the average mortgage".

It seems they have until 11:59PM tomorrow to get everything sorted out.  They'll have "enough" time after the inspection to make a b*tch list of things they "demand that I fix" and I'll have time to respond with "no".   I'm already fixing/replacing a fence, so I hope they don't come after me for more fixes.  I have enough on my plate as it is with packing and planning the next house's reno!

Oh, cool thing I learned yesterday.  The assessed value of my current house is $384k.  We have the conditional sale at $430k.  The assessed value of the new house is $560k... We bought for $508k.  Seems we got the winning end of both deals.  Of course, I don't base a lot on the assessed value of a house.  I think they pull a number out of thin air, by the square footage of the house - not by the actual value of what the house is made of.  A solid gold 1900 sq foot house would probably have an assessed value of $384k...

I now have the goal to get the new house worth more than $560k, though!  Shouldn't be difficult since NOTHING has been done to it since it was built in 1989.

[Fishnut]

There is a couple of things I feel I need to correct.  It's not a GMAC mortgage, it's a CMHC Mortgage Insurance.  When someone has less than 20% down on a house, the inforces an extra percentage or partial percentage onto the mortgage as an insurance.  It's also a very simple mortgage and lenders tend to like approving clients with the 20% down.  Here's the info:

http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/co/moloin/moloin_005.cfm

You're right in not putting too much weight on the assessed value.  That means absolutely nothing when it comes to the resale value of the house.  That figure is strictly used for property tax estimation, nothing more.  Once every so often, the city will look at the re-sale value of houses in areas and adjust an asessment to match.  However, if you're selling higher than average in your neighbourhood and buying lower, that's the winning end of both deals!

Another thing that your agent should be preparing you for is the fact that inspections are used for home owners to have peace of mind that the house their buying is sound and there are no defects in the components that 99% of us are not able to determine.  Things that are obvious are kindof hard to come back with after the inspection because if you saw it as you were looking at the house, you should have offered accordingly.  BUT, if a 10 year old furnace (as an example)hasn't had a single bit of maintenance it's likely going to have problems and need repair. A buyer will likely ask that it be fixed and have every right to expect to buy a house with a properly working furnace.  It's only 10 years old, not 20.  Big stuff that only the home inspector can determine is what people should worry about.

[Greatwhite]

There is a couple of things I feel I need to correct.  It's not a GMAC mortgage, it's a CMHC Mortgage Insurance.

Interestingly, I was thinking CMHC, but wrote it and it didn't look right so I changed it to GMAC.  I think my wife is to blame because she clearly has been using both acronyms incorrectly.   Thanks for the clarification on why the CMHC thing is better to avoid with a bigger down payment.

I've been systematically going around the house looking for anything that might stand out during an inspection.  I followed my inspector guy around both houses we did an inspection on, so had an idea of what to look for.  There are NO cracks in the parging around the foundation, so that should mean there are no cracks "further down" to worry about.  The basement is mostly finished.. The areas that are not finished look perfect with no signs of moisture anywhere.  The furnace is 5 years old, maintained annually... We just shot more insulation in the attic last fall...  windows are all new. 

It'll be hard for an inspector to find anything that might come back at me -- i hope.   a house down the street sold for way under asking, and the following week, there was a foundation repair truck there, and they dug out all around the garage to fix the foundation there.....  I found that "unusual" so looked closely around my garage for warning signs!

I just wish it was possible to get a copy of the inspection here for my own records!!

[bt]

To be fair, Ally Financial (formerly GMAC) did operate a mortgage lending unit under the GMAC branding until it put the unit into bankruptcy in May.

But yeah, CMHC in this case.

[Greatwhite]

Yeah... so... Something I'm sure you guys have learned by now, is that if ANYTHING unusual can happen to me - it will.  Nothing goes smoothly, there is always some sort of unexpected hiccup.  Sometimes it works out for the better, like the bidding war fiasco I was involved in...

This time, I have a feeling that the sale of my house will fall apart because the buyer is Iranian -- and mysteriously, the day I had a deal, the Canadian government put the economic sanctions on Iran.  This guy "got the letter" from TD and moved all his money to CIBC to escape their closing his account and seizing his money.  CIBC is now "working with him" on getting the mortgage, but I'm not optimistic, since it's 2 days past the "5 days CIBC needs to process the application".

We also learned a whole lot of other interesting stuff about the guy, which is all innocent enough - but just enough to make it very hard to get a mortgage, I think.

ARGH.

[Greatwhite]

Sometimes it works out for the better, like the bidding war fiasco I was involved in...

Yeah, so we went back on the market on Friday.  Immediately when our status went back to Active, my agent started getting calls... "What happened? Why is it active again?"... So he explained the whole thing.  He phoned around to other agents who had previously been interested.

And on Saturday afternoon, we had 2 showings.  Saturday night, an offer came in.  And this afternoon, a second offer.  The first offer was "low" with some weird "first rejection" conditions.  Once they learned that there was a second offer, they revised things to make it much more appealing.

The offer we accepted was for full asking price.  The only thing that we were not fans of was an October closing date, to allow them time to sell their house.  Not a condition on sale of the house - so after the inspection and financing is sorted out, the conditions will all be met.  The contract indicates that "if they are able to sell sooner, they are willing to shift the closing date closer".  They initially had "or outward if it doesn't sell on time".... That part was scratched out.

We bought 2 weeks off their late closing date to get back to the end of September, and will have to bridge finance until then.  But the $$ offered is good enough to cover that.

The other offer was from a guy in australia....  the time it would take to come to a deal would have been too much to make it worthwhile, really.

[Greatwhite]

Flipped the sold sign yesterday. The inspection went well, in spite of the kitchen. Sink's drain deciding to rot out at the threads 10mins before we had to rush out the door to hide for 4 hrs while the inspection was done.

All I could do was leave a note asking them not to use the left sink, explaining that it started leaking at 1:30pm THAT DAY. I fixed it Friday night, replacing both drain baskets. What great timing!!!

The only thing they found was a little wood rot under the bay window in the master bedroom. So, no price reductions, and they are confident in the house being worth what they are paying.

[Severum]

Good to hear! Congratulations! What a saga.

[Greatwhite]

Thanks... Ya, a saga is right.  I'll be sure to put this all in my memoirs..

[Peekay]

Congrats on the sale! 
Wishing you smooth pack-and-move to compensate for the drama with this part!

[Greatwhite]

Congrats on the sale! 
Wishing you smooth pack-and-move to compensate for the drama with this part!

Hehe.. a world without drama would be BORING!  I always hope for smooth sailing, but try to find the humor and entertainment in the crap-storms that pop up along the way.  I figure that you need to find the humor in bad situations and laugh about it, or else you'll be dragged down. 

We just got a nice gift basket full of nice/useful/tasty items from Pilon/Hamilton congratulating us for the sale.  When we bought our current house, we had a painting dropped off at our doorstep one day of a bunch of kids playing street hockey in front of a house with a "Sold by <name removed for protection>" sign in front of it.  My friend owns a local real estate magazine and found the painting to be HILARIOUS and saved it from the garbage man... It's now hanging in his office as a prime example of the self-marketing that SOME arrogant realtors do.

[Fishnut]

When we bought our current house, we had a painting dropped off at our doorstep one day of a bunch of kids playing street hockey in front of a house with a "Sold by <name removed for protection>" sign in front of it.  My friend owns a local real estate magazine and found the painting to be HILARIOUS and saved it from the garbage man... It's now hanging in his office as a prime example of the self-marketing that SOME arrogant realtors do.

OMG...that IS hilarious!!  I give practical things like books, home depot gift cards, sometimes food baskets from  some specialty food store or some hand made chocolates from a local business.  It all depends on the client.  Nerine got a tree for their back yard!

Congratulations!!