How come the items you mentioned aren't highlighted in the listing. It sure would make somebody looking see what the difference is, because the pics doesn't show it. Besides the neighborhood part being different, which I assume buyers in the area would already know. It does seem though that you are still overpriced as the size might be too small for those looking at houses in your price range. Generally it is good to have the smallest house in the neighborhood vs. the largest as you'll get more per sq ft, however it usually tends to be less than some of the larger homes still as others will be looking at much lower priced homes with similar sq ft in other areas too and that is who would be looking at your house. BTW how's the pre-approved part working out as far as showings. You might want to ask your realtor if that has been a limited factor too. There are cash buyers too. Also you need people to come in and see the place. The listing doesn't show the house as something special as compared to a few others. I doubt you'd have too many people coming through that weren't serious about buying with an agent as I doubt agents wants to waste their time on those people anyways when they could be out making money.

That speaks to the importance of equity, doesn't it? When you go to sell, equity is everything. People really go out on a limb when they take on a home where their expenses to maintain it max them out. And, if the market isn't appreciating, then the only equity they are building is what they are putting toward their principle. We all know that after a year of making large payments, you might own the doorknobs. Equity is the only portion of your home investment you have some liquidity with. How many of you who have purchased homes in the last ten years took out a conventional loan and put at least five percent down on your homes? How many have built up equity and then used it up with a Heloc, or refinanced because you bit off more than you could chew comfortably? I find it really scary to see the constant ads and billboards urging people to use the equity in their homes for debt consolidation. I also get uncomfortable when I see some of those shows on home improvement channels where an expert comes in to appraise a home's worth so that the owners can feel free to use up that cushion to spend more money on their homes and feel "safe" doing it. If and when they do use it up, their homes revert a more expensive home needing to bring more on the market to just meet the debt. I am nearing retirement. I have gambled on real estate for a long time now in a modest manner, but the whole goal in the game has always been to increase the equity I have in my property(ies). It has allowed me to work at a job I like, when so many of my friends who are as old or older than I "can't afford to quit" a job they dislike because they keep spending their equity like it were somebody else's money.

Samantha, the rules for catering differ from place to place. Where I live, rather than having confusing different rules, they pretty much don't allow home kitchens for any kind of cooking/baking that will be sold to the public. Anything more than maybe a small time bake sale or bid-a-basket has to be done in a commercial kitchen. Wood is a great surface for prep. Proper cleaning in a commercial establishment is different from a home kitchen, however. At the end of the day, in a commercial kitchen, all of the surfaces are cleaned with heavy duty cleansers, and during the day, after each task, they're supposed to be cleaned as well. The daily cleaning is top down, with the upper surfaces cleaned, the counters, the lower shelves and surfaces, then the floor. How many times have you heard horror stories about commercial kitchens where that didn't happen? I've done some catering in a shared commercial kitchen where there was a cleaning crew. Too many times, we'd come in and have to clean before we could start cooking, to meet standards. It wasn't any worse than many residential kitchens--probably why the crew thought it was okay--but we wouldn't work in that environment. So... Your gov't safety office or health dept. is trying to set standards for home catering. They can say, "wood counters must be scrubbed in XYZ manner and thoroughly dried before food prep can take place". And you're drying your counter and totally miss where the kids have put their boots on the counter and brushed off the evidence. Plastic cutting boards can be disinfected in the dishwasher. Wood cutting boards can be scrubbed down in the sink and left to dry vertically, away from said boots. They do have to be hard dry to keep the bacteria from growing. Most people can tolerate a lot of contamination. That's the whole point of the body's immune system. You don't know, when you're catering, who is going to eat your food. There could be someone with a compromised immune system, the very old and very young, who are more sensitive, etc. It's hard enough accounting for unknown allergies, and making sure to point out and label things appropriately. Standard food labelling rules don't require an ingredient to be listed if it is only a trace amount. That's why the newest rules require listing of common ingredients or contaminants (from shared equipment) that may cause allergies, even if they're only in trace amounts (e.g., "contains: milk") Being extra vigilant with food safety, however, is a must. As a professional, you have to control that which is in your power. It's also a good idea to have different color/composition cutting boards for each kind of food: meat, poultry, vegetables/fruits, and baked goods all have different requirements for storage and cleaning. Using the different boards really helps prevent cross contamination. In theory, an installed wood top could be used just for vegetables, but there's still the issue of accidental contamination. Like, what if you put the grocery bag down on the island and the chicken leaks? Or the boots. Or whatever. There really is no situation where a multi-use surface, like a home kitchen counter, should be used for commercial prep. OTOH, in a normal, healthy family, accidental contamination of the cutting surface, a missed spot on the scrub down, a cutting board run quickly under warm water and detergent and not dried, etc., is probably no problem at all, and, in fact, might provide the challenge that an immune system needs to continue to be healthy. Residential catering can be done safely, but it does take a certain level of diligence. BTW, this is a reason why "personal chefs" are popular here. Unlike make and take catering, personal chefs bring ingredients into the hosts' home and prepare the food there. My understanding is that a meal cooked in the home is considered home cooking for most purposes, unless there is an egregious violation on the part of the chef.

OMG Marguerite, I have to apologize I have this automatic presumption that everyone on the forum is North America based. I truly thought you were saying that to be funny. These were separate instances over the course of several years of shopping at various locations throughout the country. In a lot of our shopping centers/malls especially in the western states have open areas...the roof is the sky if you will. Many of our lowe's and home depot stores have a huge part of the nursery section outside. I guess that's how "critters" get in from time to time. the weirdest I've heard so far was a bunch of deer that had stormed into a wal-mart and caused a lot of damage. Maybe others here have heard about it, it was on television a while back. a few weeks ago when I mentioned to an employee in the garden center that there were at least 3 rats by the soil area she said, "oh, that's nothing, we usually have a lot more than that." Very non-chalant about it too, lol. Another employee at another location said they had heard owls in the back of the store. "Deer Enter Kohl's Department Store In Iowa Through Automatic Doors, Bewilder Shoppers" That also made headlines as two of the deer exited the way they came in, lol. You can read about it at the link below. And, there's gotta be at least 1 youtube video about the other incident. One of the deer managed to jump halfway behind the cash register area with an employee still in the spot. Luckily for him he got out of the way in time. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/iowa-deer-enter-kohls-store-doors_n_2160110.html