Congrats! Same here, every home we sold in less than 2 weeks. It takes work, but it sure makes life easier.

We've sold 6 homes in the last 30 years, none were on the market longer than 10 days. Key to selling quick was a well kept home and a fair price. It didn't hurt that all the homes were sold because of corporate relocations and the selling costs were picked up by my husband's company. This allowed us to ask less for our property than had we needed to recoup selling costs.

Thanks for all the congrats. Since you've all had similar success, hopefully this will encourage others. There's a lot you can do to a house to make it more presentable without having to spend a lot of money. TLC goes a long way to aid marketability.

Bottom line, though, is the price. It needs to realistic, even if reality is painful. We had considered selling a year ago. Unfortunately we didn't. I basically worked the last year for free since my market value went down about the same amount as my earned income. Oh well.

Kevin

Congratulations. That is awesome.

Anybody got some advice for me? I have sold my house in less than a week-- twice. The first set of buyers were promoted and elected to stay in their home state 5 weeks after accepted offer. Sold in a weekend the second time to buyers who now, two months and $1700 worth of updates later, had a tax lien applied to their current house. We are prepping for sale for the third time and I am just pulling my hair out. We've had probably 7 or 8 offers on this house but I can't get to settlement. Any advice for THAT?

Compress the suspese dates in the contract for the buyer to a minimum. (inspection, appraisal, unconditional loan committment etc.)
Try to insist on a pre-approval of buyer by lender with just an appraisal due.
Bump the earnest money up and tie it to "specific performance" vs. "liquidated damages".
Accept only contingencies where the buyers house is under contract, review their contract/home and their buyer for weaknesses.
Sometimes even above mentioned steps don't help. Oh, one more thing...don't forget to pray.

Thanks, CPowers21.

Demeron, wow, that's frustrating. I've never not had a sale go through. BernieK has some good advice. Good luck.

Kevin

Why didn't they workout? What was the average price of all the offers? Was there anything they listed as needing to be done?

Losing a buyer is very frustrating. We sold our house in SoCal in August within a week - two weeks after that, buyer backed out. Next offer was in October. Not a single house in our area had been sold during that time. Fortunately this one went through, although it was iffy the last few days due to buyer's problems.

demeron, you mentioned buyer problems "5 weeks" and "two months" after offer. Can you make it a 30 day or less escrow, to protect you more? Even 30 days is a long time for a seller to wait. I can't imagine going more than 30 days. As a seller I'd be a nervous wreck.

The house we just bought in Oregon was 15 days from accepted offer to close. Dec 11 to Dec 29. It wasn't a total cash offer and in fact I hadn't even lined up a mortgage when we put in the offer. We had the house inspection and then some repairs done by seller and things just progressed really well. Two things worked in our favor to save time: house was vacant, and an appraisal had been done a month earlier for another buyer (who canceled the sale the day before escrow closed) so the lender didn't ask for a new appraisal.

That you've had two offers is very good though, so maybe the third one will be a charm and work out just right. Good luck!

Thanks for the advice, guys (and sorry to hijack the thread.) We will do our best. We had about four offers the first time and two or three the second-- obviously we picked the wrong ones :( The first time we asked for a longer settlement because our house wasn't done yet. The second time the buyers wanted the longer settlement and since the overlap was only about 2-3 weeks we figured it would give us time to get out of the old house and into the new. Now, of course, we will have AMPLE time to make the switch... sigh. It's costing us so much money and it is discouraging that I have to live with garbage bag curtains but that's the way it goes. At least they're white and they filter the light kind of nicely :) We made it through a 4.5 hour inspection and a bank appraisal so hopefully that will smooth things for the next buyer.

and most important, we price fairly. We don't try to make a killing, nor do we give things away.

In a declining market, like the one in many parts of the country, how, exactly, do you determine a fair price?

Do you mind sharing your general location with us? Although you put it tactfully, the underlying message of your post is that if you can't sell, your house is uncared for and/or "unfairly" priced.

Sorry, but that's just not the case in many areas of the country right now. There are places where the number of houses sold each month is less than half of what it was in 2005.

So telling us just where you are could help us understand a bit more about your success.

In a declining market, like the one in many parts of the country, how, exactly, do you determine a fair price?

that was my problem.

"In a declining market, like the one in many parts of the country, how, exactly, do you determine a fair price?"
Knowing what has sold recently in the neighborhood, the price and condition. What the competition has to offer and how your home stacks up will give you a good indication of which pricepoint to start. It does help to have assisstance of an unbiased person.

Pricing fairly is difficult and requires no longer viewing your house as your home. Once you decide to sell, try to remove all emotion from the experience. I know that's difficult, but that's what I've always done. It's just a product that I'm selling, not my home.

To begin the process, I spent a LOT of time on realtor.com, the MLS website, and others. I studied what was on the market, what they offered, and what they were priced. I then jumped in my car and found about two dozen comparable homes for sale and studied their curb appeal. I photographed the homes, their yards, the street, neighborhood, etc., making notes of negatives and positives. Later, I compared these homes to my house and noted where I excelled and what I could do to improve.

During this time, I went through the entire the house and gathered many of the things I wasn't using. Some I gave away, some I threw away, others I packed away in rubbermaid containers, labeled the containers, and put them in my attic or crawlspace. This included all photo albums, books I wasn't using now, DVDs, CDs, a lot of clothing, dishes, china, etc. I've converted many of my records to digital format and got rid of the paper. I packed up the Bowflex in my son's room as he's in med school and rarely home. I straightened every closet, cupboard, the garage, crawlspace, room, etc. When I finis with something it gets put away immediately. The house is always neat. I painted all the ceilings, cleaned the carpets and drapes, painted the moldings, fixed anything loose or squeaky, cleaned the oven, fridge, and microwave. Bathrooms scrubbed top to bottom. All leaves are raked and the yard and front of house are clean and neat. We even make sure we pick up any trash along the road at the entrance to our community.

I intended using a realtor. I researched on Realtor.com looking for Realtors with a lot of experience in my area and possessing continuing ed credentials and/or sales awards. I invited four of them to meet with me and see our property. All of them had the identical reaction. They all said how incredibly clean the house was. When I asked if they had any suggestions to better prepare for sale, they all said no, it's in move-in condition.

One of the Realtors we dismissed after the first five minutes. Just not compatible. Another one I would have dismissed because of the "smoker's voice" but continued dialog because of her professionalism and credentials. She ultimately didn't make the cut, not because she was bad, but the remaining two were better. We were in the process of making our decision between the last two when we got our offer. We're still not sure who we would pick. They are both excellent, professional, likeable, and capable, though they have two different styles. I don't think either one would be a mistake, which made the decision so difficult. Three of the Realtors prepared a CMA and asked what we thought we should price the house. All felt we were about right. Had I not done my research, though, I would not have known, since values have dropped significantly in the last year or so (@$150,000 less).

We told the Realtors we would have a couple of names to exclude on our listing. I prepared a sales flyer and distributed to the neighbors that said they might know somebody interested. I didn't put a price on the flyer because I didn't want to poison the market for when I listed on MLS. When an interested person would call, I'd let them know the price.

In my experience, I've seen people look to sell on their own to save the commission and put more money in their pocket. I take a different approach. This goes to the greedy part. I look at what I would have netted if sold by a realtor and use that price as my target offer to accept. By not being greedy and trying to pocket that extra money I've now value-priced my home. This does two things: makes the house better priced than the competition, and makes it easy to get the house appraised for the sale price. I still come out with the same money and the house is easier to sell and close.

I hope some of this helps, and explains my comments. I do not mean you can't sell your house if it's uncared for. If it is in less than stellar condition, though, you must reflect that in your price. With so many homes on the market, competition is great. You have to make your house stand out from the rest. The two easiest ways are condition and price. When I bought this house in 1988, I had looked at 54 homes. I couldn't believe the condition of some of the homes: peeling paint, trash around the house, clothes piled high on the washer, toilet lids up, dishes in the sink, etc. All things we live with day to day. However, once it comes time to sell, you need to view it as a job. It takes work from all household members to prepare and keep a home ready for sale. We've always done that work and it pays off.

For those wondering the market I'm in, it's Long Island, NY. We're suffering from depressed prices and high inventory like many other areas. It's far from the hot market it was a couple of years ago.

Good luck to all,

Kevin

Kevin, I want to make sure that I understand you...you accepted a price that was $150K less than you could have gotten for your house last year?

So...If you were selling, say, a $450K house, you took a 30% hit?

Or do you own a $1 million + house? If that's the case, reducing the price 15% below last year's sales makes sense.

Could you clarify for us?

At the height of the market, comparable homes to mine were selling in the low to mid 800's. Now it's the high 600's to low 700's. I basically worked for nothing in 2006. I should have moved in 2005. LOL

infodivamary wrote: Although you put it tactfully, the underlying message of your post is that if you can't sell, your house is uncared for and/or "unfairly" priced.

As an "unsucessful seller" for six months last year, this is exactly what I thought when I read the OP.

Sometimes it's just the market. (And/or the neighbors from h*** but that's another post.)

Hi, laura1202.

Every home has a price. If a house is not selling, it's almost always the price. The market is the price. What market means is the price you can get from a willing and able buyer, not what the seller thinks the house is worth. Last year I could have easily gotten another $100,000 for my house. But that's not what the "market" will pay now. So my house isn't worth an extra 100 grand now. It's worth what I sold it for.

The reason there are so many homes on the market now is simply price. The economy is good, unemployment is low, interest rates are low, home prices are too high. Buyers are sitting on the side waiting for prices to plummet. I don't think that's going to happen, but what needs to happen is many sellers have to forget about the price they could have gotten last year or what their neighbor got six months ago. In most areas, the market demands lower prices. When prices drop enough, or conditions change where they start to go up, buyers will be there.

Would your house sell if you cut the price $50,000, $100,000, $200,000? If so, then your house has been on the market at too high a price. If you have the neighbors from h***, and your house is priced as if you had great neighbors, then you're house is priced too high. A seller needs to price based on their conditions and the impact it has on their home. A house on the next block that's the same as your house, but has a nicer view, or quieter street, or nice neighbors can command a higher price than your home. It's sad and frustrating that neighbors can cost you money like that, but they do. Denying that fact by pricing as if they didn't will make your home tougher to sell.

By no means have I intended to offend anyone. I feel your pain. I'm just passing on what my experience has shown.

Good luck,

Kevin

A clean home can be a huge selling point. Nobody wants to have to clean someone else's filth before they move into their new home nor do they want to imagine what kind of creatures may have been living in their home before them.
You'd be surprised at what some people will let pass for clean.
Clean goes hand in hand with well maintained. All those little annoying jobs you didn't have time for NEED to be done buyer's notice them and it puts doubt into their minds as to how well cared for the house is if the little things weren't taken care of.
It seems in my experience that the harder it is for sellers to sell the more they have to work at presenting a overall good package. Buyer's get VERY picky when there's alot to chose from. Their level of expectations rise and they want more for their dollar.

Kevin, let's also add that you've owned the house you just sold since 1988. Even at $150K off, I'm sure you've done quite well.

Of course it's all about price. There is a price at which most any house, even one that's been on the market for a year, would sell within two weeks. Is that necessarily the "fair" price? Perhaps it's really the "fire sale" price.

And I do believe that the posters on this board know enough to declutter and have the house in top notch condition before marketing it.

The fact of the matter is that you had enough equity growth in your house over the last 19 years to willingly take a $150K hit on last year's selling levels and still come away smiling.

Not everyone can do that. And for you to applaud yourself for being lucky enough to be able to do it....well, it does sound a bit smug.

finesse wrote: Would your house sell if you cut the price $50,000, $100,000, $200,000? If so, then your house has been on the market at too high a price.

Well, for what it's worth, we already lowered the price $105K from our original listing price, which is 11+%. We are under assessed value, under appraised value AND on the low end of the (sold) comps. I am VERY cognizant of the market in my area AND I know the effect bad neighbors can have on a sale. There are other ways to deal with that, though besides just tanking your price and practically giving the property away: I'm happy to say that with persistance on our part and "encouragement" from the County (zoning enforcement) my neighbors have managed to get their property cleaned up, for now anyway. They will never win yard of the month or any homeowner awards, but there has been a HUGE improvement.

The new privacy screen of arborvitae helps too. :)

I'm glad to hear that, Laura.

I have to agree with Carol. A lot of the posters on here who are trying to sell haven't owned their houses all that long. Pricing to sell quickly often means they'll sell at a loss. Others need to buy a bigger, more expensive house because of a growing family and dropping their price means they'll be left with very little cash to put into the new house. Others may feel that the market is at or near bottom and they don't care to lower their price enough to reach it.

So I question how much better they're going to feel reading this thread.

Everybody, stop beating up on the OP. The message about cleaning up before a sale cannot be repeated too often. Laura, I have followed your posts for months. At first you consistently blamed the market for your failure to sell. Then you blamed your wretched neighbors (I'm glad for your sake that these awful slobs have been tamed). As time went on, and you switched realtors, you made a series of very expensive improvements to your house. The fact is, you overpriced your house according to its original condition. Now that you have poured money into all these improvements your price may be perfect; it wasn't in the past. In effect, you did what the OP is suggesting everyone should do but on a larger scale.

Feedingfrenzy, most people who need to sell are better off taking a loss than chasing a declining market. Some of the posters who believe they need to make a certain price are maintaining two mortgages or running a split household with one member of the family renting out of town while the other members attempt to sell the family home in order to join him. In these circumstances, holding out for a desired price may cost a lot more than selling at a loss. Pricing a house is a business decision, and sometimes cutting your losses is the right business decision. The OP's advice may not make sellers feel better in the short run, but it could save them a lot of money and stress in the long run.

kaleberg wrote: The fact is, you overpriced your house according to its original condition.

Oh please! And you know this HOW??? I have never posted any pictures of my home or a link to my MLS listing. And I believe you were the one who said in a previous thread that I had left a "paper trail". Good luck with that one!

The decline in the NoVA Market hit everyone and I do mean everyone from out of the blue. Prices had been increasing at a rate of 20% a year from 2000-2005. We priced our home at only 3% above the last (sold, in 2005) comp when we originally listed it last April. NO ONE (realtors or buyers) who came through our home during the first few months that it was on the market said that it was over priced. Then yes, the market started to decline and we lowered our price accordingly. I supposed you would have been able to tell what the market was going to do in my area when no one else could. @@

As for "blame", sure all sellers look for the REASON(S) why their house hasn't sold. That is not the same as "blaming", imo. But the fact is that my neighbors tanked two contracts that we know of, so yes, I guess I do "blame" them in some sense.

As for the improvements, they were on my new Realtor's "wish list", cosmetic only and NOT anything that we "had" to do in order to sell the house. And FWIW, my home was professionally cleaned on a weekly basis for the entire 10+ years that we lived there. So no worries about "cleanliness".

Mary said the OP's post was smug. I agree. (I hardly call that "beating up" on him.) There are just so many factors other than "clean" and "fair price" that determine if a house sells or not.

The OP said that he wanted to make sellers feel good by relating his experience. But the fact that he's owned his house so long puts him in a different category than most of the other sellers on here because he can price lower than his competition and still come out good. You could just a s well argue that he sold his house too cheap because it sold immediately as that others on here haven't sold because their prices are too high.

No one really knows the optimum price for their house. Setting a selling price is just guesswork and there's no use pretending otherwise.

Hi, All.

Infodivamary3: I have had the house for a while, but when I bought, it was at the top of the late 1980's run-up. We paid $325,000 for the house in 1988 and have easily put another $150,000 into the house since then. During the 1990's, the market value dropped to the low 200's. Am I making a profit? Yes. It still doesn't make a $150,000 hit any easier, and it certainly wasn't willingly :-). Coupled with the fact because of cost increases in FL construction since we started planning our new home, it's costing us at least an extra $200,000 to build. That's a $350,000 delta since we started planning. My wife and I are far from rich, and that amount means instead of retiring to FL this year we'll be moving and looking for jobs. Regarding what's a fair price? It's not what makes you a profit and it's not even what makes you feel good. It's about what you're able to sell for in a reasonable time. If a well-maintained, properly staged house is on the market for one year, barring a unique or limited appeal home (or built on top of Love Canal), there's something wrong with the price. I'm not saying it's the seller's fault, unless they've chosen not to enlist the help of a realtor or ignored the realtor's advice. Many times they get bad advice from professionals who fail to react quickly enough in a declining market. There are a lot of good realtors, as well as many, many poor or mediocre ones.

Laura, my heart goes out to you. Bad neighbors are probably one of the worst nightmares possible. I believe you that the neighbors tanked your sales. Sellers many times don't realize the enormity of the financial impact a negative feature can have. It's quite possible the neighbors presence require a much larger reduction in price than you or your realtor realizes or wants to admit. Perhaps you need to pursue civil action and damages because of the neighbors failure to maintain their property to such an extent that you've suffered a financial loss. I do feel very badly about your situation. I hope it improves even more for you, Laura.

Feedingfrenzy: Nobody ever said we're supposed to make a profit owning a home. Often we do, but it's no guarantee. Buyers don't care one bit how much a seller stands to make or lose in the sale; they just want to be a home at the lowest price they feel they can. How is that any different than when we all bought our homes? In many areas, anyone that's bought a home within the last couple of years that needs to sell now is going to take a loss, sometimes a substantial one. If one has to move, though, holding out for the price you want in a declining or flat market seldom works out. When I bought my house in 1988 for $325,000 my new next door neighbor had just put his house on the market. Homes had been going up monthly, but I bought at the peak, and the market was headed down. He, like many in the current market, felt he could get top dollar still, and listed the house for $339,000. Within the first month or so a qualified buyer made an offer of $315,000. I suggested he take the offer when he told me about it, but he wanted to get at least the same I had paid, even though my home had more features. He wouldn't sell for the $315,000. It took him almost three years to sell, and when he finally did, he got less than $250,000 for it. I've seen the same thing happen in this current cycle. It's human nature to want to get the most. Nobody wants to leave money on the table. However, some of the money sellers are counting isn't there. My reason for starting this thread was not to tell others want they want to hear. It's to illustrate the right product at the right price is selling.

Kaleberg: Thanks for the support. You're bang on about this being a business decision. Selling at a loss is a tough pill to swallow, but sometimes it's the right thing to do.

Laura (again :-)) Again, I'm sorry if I came off smug, and I agree, I've had much worse beatings in my life than being called a name. What I'm still trying to stress, though is "fair price". You're quite right that there are many factors why a house doesn't sell, but there's very few that can't be overcome by lowering the price. Though a drastically lower price may not seem fair to the seller, if that's what it takes to sell the home, then the home sold at "fair market value". Again, good luck with your situation. I really do hope it improves.

Kevin

We sold our house in SoCal in November at a much lower price than I wanted or had imagined it would be. But we needed to sell (we had asked for a job transfer to a different state) and were willing to sacrifice some money for the quicker sale. We realized the market was on the downward slide and didn't want to be on the trailing end of it. It's hard to face those facts, and it was hard for us to accept that if we'd sold a year before it would have been a snap to get $60-70k more.

I'd been watching the neighborhood houses that were on the market and going to the open houses to see what our competition was. We priced according to recent *sold* comps, not what the others were asking. Some of the other houses had been on the market for months without reducing their prices. Some still hadn't sold when we closed the sale on ours, and now 2 months I can see some of them still listed on realtor.com.

I think those neighbors would say we didn't sell at a fair price, that we priced too low, but it still was over 3 months from initial listing to closing. So it wasn't a fire sale. We had a quick sale the first week but then the buyer flaked out 2 weeks later and we had to start again.

I agree that pricing may be the most important aspect of selling. Most people have a top price in mind that they won't go beyond, no matter how nice your house is. And trying to get inside a buyer's mind is just impossible. There are so many conflicting reports in the media that trying to figure out pricing is so frustrating. I'm so thankful we were able to sell.

Here's another viewpoint. We sold our house on the first weekend of February, 2005. The house was listed for a total of 8 hours before we signed an offer sheet/ binder. Believe me when I say we we're in shock!

We spent three months removing all our personal items/ pictures & etc. from the house. We re-painted most of the rooms. A couple of major things we did that needed to be done was replace the heating/ hot water system. Both were 33 years old. We tiled the kitchen floor and had some new tiling done in the bathroom. I did all the work except for the tile and furnace.

Our realtor assisted us in staging the house to show off it's best features. Price wise, while we were spending the 3 months getting the houses ready to sell, we went to open house in our area that showed the same type house as ours - a raised ranch. We had a good isea of the market and our realtor did a market analysis for us - part of her job. And this was not the "make a killing" mentality. We had lived in the house for 23 years. We knew what we would make.

Did we ask to little? No. We asked a fair price and were willing to negotiate on price. We priced to sell!

The other aspect of the sale was we were already in contract for our present house. We purchased our present home for $200,000.00 under the market value. We made an offer on it before we had our old house on the market.

The reason was the house had not been maintained. The furnace hadn't been serviced in three years, the cook top on the range was broken through, the oven hadn't been cleaned in God knows how long. The dishwasher was rusted out and the hardwood floors were a disaster because of animals. I could go one because I've already addressed 37 seperate projects since we moved in in March 2005. My house is now worth what it should have sold for.

So, a well maintained, clean house does make a big difference. Buyers know when the owners have taken care of the property. It is called pride in ownership.

Price does make a difference. A fairly priced house will sell much faster than an overpriced one.

So congrats to Kevin and all the other who have sold quickly, even in a depressed market.

Enjoy the journey.

eal51 in western CT

Laura, here is what you posted about your recent improvements, "We had three bedrooms and a buddy bath repainted, all were done in Duron "Sandy Lane". We had the kitchen wallpaper border (and matching window treatments) removed and then that room was repainted with Duron "Tobacco Road". (I was SO WORRIED about this, that it would be too dark but with the white cabinets and Corian it looks amazing.) We had three trees taken down in the front yard, because they were overgrown and blocking the view of and the light from the front of the house. We had fill dirt brought in and put under the deck and then wash gravel laid on top of that. We had the siding power washed and the gutters cleaned out and washed. We had all the exterior windows and dormers painted and the front shutters painted as well. We had the garage floor power washed and painted. We replaced the mailbox (actually our new Realtor did this for us). We are replacing all the light fixtures on the main and upper levels. We are having the diveway leveled and resurfaced. The hardwood floors are being sanded and refinished (that started today) and then the carpets will be steam cleaned. Then the whole house will be professionally cleaned."

That's a lot of work and dollars. By agreeing to do all this, you have, in essence, admitted your house, as it was, was not going to sell at the price you had set. If not, why spend all this money?

Thanks, eal51. You've given an excellent example of fair price. Congratulations on your sale and purchase.

Kevin

kaleberg wrote: That's a lot of work and dollars. By agreeing to do all this, you have, in essence, admitted your house, as it was, was not going to sell at the price you had set. If not, why spend all this money?

Obviously, you don't understand my local market. And why should you? I'm on the East Coast, you're on the West.

Our inventory is huge right now, compared to even a year ago. Sellers cannot afford to have even ONE THING (that is within their power to change) that would cause a buyer to say, "Ugh, not that one, I'll go look at one of (any number of) the other homes in this price range in this area".

Eighteen months ago (or even less) we would not have had to do a single one of the things we did and our home would have easily sold for 75-100K over it's current list price. Historically (in the last five years or so) houses in my zip have sold in matter of hours, usually with a bidding war pushing the price tens of thousands of dollars OVER list.

But it's a different market today. Now my house needs that extra WOW factor for it to sell (hopefully) quickly and at our list price. That's why we took the time and spent the $$ to do the things we did.

laura, I'm not second-guessing you at all here but I have a serious question: thinking about the money you spent both on actual remodeling/landscaping etc and the money you lost due to paying the mortgage, if you had just dropped the list price that same amount, would that have sold your house?

I mean, if it's cost you $40k (just as an example) for the remodel/landscape and the extra carrying costs, would $40k off the price have made a difference in selling?

Or are buyers in your area not wanting to do anything to the house - they want it already fixed up?

I know we looked at a few houses that would have been great if we just did some work to them but we didn't want to do that work. We wanted to have something that needed just small things or nothing.

Good luck with your new listing.

finesse wrote: Again, good luck with your situation. I really do hope it improves.

Thank you Kevin, I appreciate the good wishes.

I really feel like we are on the right track now with this Realtor AND the fact that my neighbors finally (finally!) cleaned up their act.

Of course it is still a slow time of year for selling so we will try not to be too impatient. We think we have done all we can, so now we list it and wait....

minet wrote: Or are buyers in your area not wanting to do anything to the house - they want it already fixed up?

Here in NoVA, in our price range (800-850K), buyers today want move in, updated, ready to LIVE IN condition. In short, practically perfect.

And that's what we gave them. There is nothing that a buyer would HAVE to do now before moving in to the house.

(And I know the price range is different but I still can't believe people can actually sell a house with major problems like "The furnace hadn't been serviced in three years, the cook top on the range was broken through, the oven hadn't been cleaned in God knows how long. The dishwasher was rusted out and the hardwood floors were a disaster because of animals.")

Thanks for the luck, I know we still need it!

We bought in a buyer's market a couple of years ago. We saw 3 dozen houses in the course of a long weekend. Our want-list got extremely specific to weed out the 150+ houses in our price range. All the houses were nearly identical in features and price (0-12 yo, 4/2.5+, finished basemment, 2-3 car garage, cul-de-sac location). The average DOM was 90 days.
What was most amazing to us, coming from a seller's market (where all the prep work many people did to sell a house was to dig a hole for the For Sale sign), was that all the houses were in great condition. They were all very clean, decluttered, seemingly well-maintained, and nicely decorated. Maybe 2 houses has immediately noticable defects. Some had flooring, paint, or wallpaper that wasn't our style, but we were looking for a house to decorate and to remodel the kitchen, so we could look beyond that. Other buyers had the luxury of rejecting a house because the carpet was mauve or the countertops were blue, because there were still dozens of other houses to choose from.
We found the perfect house for us. It screamed 80's builder. Oak cabs throughout, white and pink 8" tile flooring, plastic "brass" lighting. It *was* spotless and the sellers had replaced the burgandy carpet with beige. Compared to other houses we'd seen, it was really dated and needed a new kitchen and updated baths. The price was in-line with the comps (lower by about 2%) and in the end we paid 97% of the asking price. It had been on the market for 5 days. It sold quickly because *we* bought it. Most buyers would have passed. A year later, several of the houses we'd toured were still on the market at only slightly reduced prices. They eventually sold close to asking price.
Sometimes (esp in a buyer's market) cleanliness and a fair price aren't enough. It takes the right buyer.

Here's another thing to think about, especially in today's real estate market, which laura1202 posted - move in ready!

In western CT were house can easily sell for $500,000.00 to over a million, buyers want move in ready. They don't want to paint or clean to remoldel or buy appliances or anything. Just move in their furniture - that's it.

Most of these buyers will only stay for 3 to 5 years and move on - corporate climbers. Many are taking out interest only mortages.

And to answer laura1202 question on why people would sell a house with major problems - beacuse it was me who bought that house - they had no choice. They were broke, carrying three mortages and hadn't made a payment in about 6 months. And unlike most buyers today, I can see past what is there and have a vision for what can be! If the bones of the house are good, the neighborhood is good as are the schools, buy it and fix it up.

Enjoy the journey.

eal51 in western CT

@finesse - http://www.houzz.com/user/finesse-gw

I saw a comment you left in a post about Flood Ins. Can you contact me please? I am on LI too and need a new broker for my home, auto & flood insurances. Follow me here & that will allow you to message me! Tku -Lisa