Selling my house: go neutral or stay consistent?
amysrq
16 years ago
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kabergs
16 years agoRelated Discussions
Sell/build (and if so where) or stay put?
Comments (21)Tad, That same area I love is on the northmost edge of Murfreesboro, so as close to Nashville as you can get and still be in Murfreesboro. Communting from West Nashville to Murfreesboro was pretty difficult when I was trying to get home for anything like picking up kids from school. Traffic can get pretty dense right about exit 70, Almaville Road/Smyrna until at least exit 74 where you can exit to the edge of Murfreesboro. That four miles can be really difficult during the commute home. The commute to work gets dense right about Hickory Hollow to Harding Road. And the ways around it, aren't much better. Too many lights. But if you don't mind driving for 45-90 minutes to get home, it's worth it. There is enough in Murfreesboro to keep you happy, it's less expensive, more relaxed atmosphere, close enough to Nashville for anything it doesn't have. I can't speak to the benefits/problems of Franklin, but living in Franklin, it seems like my youngest brother is really struggling financially to live there. And at no other time have they struggled. Is it worth it? Dunno. All places have good schools. _____________________________________________ Murfreesboro school rating: http://www.greatschools.org/tennessee/murfreesboro/ Franklin school rating: http://www.greatschools.org/tennessee/franklin/ Nashville school rating: http://www.greatschools.org/tennessee/nashville/ And because I know my hometown, more Nashville ratings http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/tennessee/districts/metropolitan-nashville-public-schools/hume-fogg-academic-high-school-18154 (Gold ranking from US News and World Report #54 in the nation) http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/tennessee/districts/metropolitan-nashville-public-schools/martin-luther-king-jr-magnet-at-pearl-high-school-18163 (Gold rating from US News and World Report and ranked #73 in the nation)...See MoreI hate my house: Should I stay or should I sell now?
Comments (16)I want to thank you all for replying to my post. It was very generous of you to take the time to help me with this decision. You all made some great points for me to consider. Looks like we'll be putting it on the market but I thought I would address some of the comments in your posts at this point: Play up what 'spoke' to us when we bought it issue: That's gonna be tough. I dare say I do hate EVERYTHING about this place: but I know that can't be entirely true. Mostly is though! I'll give it that it has a pretty good floor plan and a nice neighborhood. Period. Why did we buy it? Well we had a list of things we wanted the new house to have and this one had many of them, when we looked at the list on paper and put checkmarks next to it, it looked ok. i.e. 2 car att garage, 4 bedrooms, office, screen porch, playroom...Plus basically had the square footage we wanted for our family of 5, a nice quiet neighborhood, and was in the school district we were trying to get into, which was our #1 priority and could close in time (#2priority). That's about it. Nothing of the actual house itself spoke to us, other than to say" you'll need to fix this , clean that, update this, repair that"....ad nauseum. It had been neglected by previous owners and showed its wear and tear but we thought it had the bones to work with and once we put "our mark on it, it would be nice" and we'd be in a good school district. I remember saying that. We had left a lovely new house that I had drawn the plans for and needed nothing done but was in a poor school district. After the move I sunk into a very deep depression which I have been able with much effort to scratch and crawl my way out of but as a result I think I'll forever resent this hellhole since it robbed me of a couple years when I was depressed. We have done a lot of improvements and in fact it is considered by most (not me) to be quite nice. It is nice but I am too emotionally tied to hating it to ever see it as really nice. We could stay and continue working on it since there are a few mre things we'd like to do. The only thing is the more we do, though in a way it helps, in another way it just reminds me of what a mistake we made by buying it in the first place. The $30,000 lost issue: I think I was referring to the fact that the market has depreciated by that much here so I was seeing it as a loss IF we move but I agree with the point that it's actually already lost! I had never thought of it that way. Thanks for pointing that out. The can we afford to move question: I'd say that's the million dollar question. And the answer is a definite yes but with some caveats. We'll be paid off here within 9 years. Oldest will be starting college in 6 years. If we move, we'd need to go back up to a 15 year mortgage and payments would be about the same as now. Yikes, I am very frugal and paying a mortgage for an extra 6 years is a tough pill to swallow. Tougher even than the Prozac maybe! We have lots of friends who have lovely houses and 30 yr mortgages but I can't handle that, though we could have one S W E E T !!! house if I could. Not in the cards for me or my DH since I hate debt. a 15 yr mortgage again will be a little tough to take but less so than living here where I'm unhappy. And you know what they say: "If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!" Life is short issue: Sure is which is why we are planning on selling. It's a tough market and we're only willing to lower the price such that we can get a nicer place with a 15 yr mortgage. We won't go so low on price here that would necessitate us getting a 30 yr mortgage for any new place. That would definitely make me resent any new place such that I'd be in the same boat as now. Hopefully we'll get lucky and be able to sell with not too big a loss. So, have I mentioned that I have a lovely house to sell????? LOL...See MoreHelp, selling house, and I don't do neutral!
Comments (36)I've been following your post because this past month, hubby has been preparing me for the dreaded "R" word (relocation). We'd just finally finished our basement and I used COLOR for the first time and I love it. I also just painted our front LR-turned-"library" (light sage). We had all blandish light smoke gray walls throughout, but I was adding in sages, pumpkin "spice", and SW Blonde. I think I'll hold up on my other paint projects in the main living areas and let them remain neutral. Now that I know how to paint, I don't think I'd let one or two bright rooms scare me (if/when house-hunting), but I wouldn't want to have to paint a large area--like several rooms/halls that flow together--soon after moving in, so if there are other houses in the market that would be other than this scenario, they'd have the edge. I just saw in your last post that you live in Durham. Small world--it's the RTP area that we would be relocating to from central IL. I think your area has higher home prices, so that scares me. I'm in my dream home now, I can't stand the thought of leaving.... :-( Ah well. If you have any links to good realtor sites that have pics, etc., in your area, please share! Thanks. Good luck with your upcoming relocation. When it's what you want, things usually go better. Like someone mentioned above, it's time to stop thinking of the current home as "yours" and to distance yourself from it--changing color back to neutral will help with that. When you do this, something about the "energy" of the home changes (weird, I know). I like the LR after Lindy photoshopped it. I also think I would do the kitchen cabinets all the same (not light on top, dark on bottom). What about some "antiquing" of them--in the cracks? Can the kitchen be a different color from the rest of the "fun space"? I have a friend who did her cabinets cream with some glaze in the cracks to antique them and then painted her walls a ruddy color (terra cotta-like). It was gorgeous and did well with the neutral colors of the rest of her rooms, but still gave her some "pop". A good muted orange (since you like that color) is Laura Ashley 'Spice' (at Lowes)--I'm not an orange person but fell in love with this and used it in a basement area and planned on it for my kitchen. I love how wrought iron looks against it. It seems very popular right now. Good luck and have fun! Tracey...See MoreNew craigslist chairs - should they stay or should they go?
Comments (23)Thanks for all the responses. You have given me a lot to mull over but alas, not a consensus! You all seem about as evenly split as my thinking has been! If it's any help, here's a pic of the new chairs with the pillows and throw from the other chairs. My pillow and throw selection is a bit lacking, but it might give you an idea. Not sure the throw and pillows help. I do think that the new chairs are a bit more sophisticated than my decorating style -- the New York City apartment is a great comparison (as I studied the pictures I posted, I was thinking they looked like something Emily Henderson would put in her Hollywood-rich-people makeovers.) My house is a farmhouse with wide-width pine floors and pretty much all the furniture is vintage/antique and kind of country/shabby/farmhouse in style. I'm just not sure the new chairs fit with the style. (But then again, maybe my style could use some shaking-up!) Also Ingrid - the coffee table is a chest brought back from China by a relative. It has odd Chinese paintings on it featuring little bald people with fishing poles. I hated it at first and had planned to paint the whole thing black but over time the paintings have grown on me. And though you can't tell in the picture, that exact shade of turquoise is in the rug. Really the rug has pretty much every shade in the room which I guess is handy for giving lots of choices for accessorizing -- and my accessorizing skills can clearly use all the help they can get!...See Moreamysrq
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