Glad I could make your day, fruitgirl. I don't think I'm sorry I bought it, I think the problem is that I overestimated my abilities. Which has nothing to do with the house. And I do think it's stupid to buy a house after visiting it once. This is a forum; I'm free to express my opinion. Since I tend to be a person that spends a little time wallowing and going "o woe is me" and then I get over myself and "git r done", I'm now in git r done mode and I'm working on a big punch list of what I need to do to make this house attractive to sellers. We will start by removing the falling down garage. My DH is calling for a dumpster tomorrow and we'll start working on that. Everyone has agreed that the exterior needs to be painted and the roof replaced, so that will happen next week once the garage demo is done. Then I will paint the interior and declutter and a few other things that two of the realtors suggested. We picked which realtor we'd like to go with, when we have the repairs done she'll give us a price that she thinks we can sell it at. As long as the number she gives us is higher than the price we bought it for by the 6% commission, we can go with her. Which of course we discussed with her. We may discuss discounting commission options since she will be helping us with buying a house as well. We figure 30k worth of targeted repairs to bring the house to a level at which when selling it, we don't make money, but we don't lose money. It's a challenge, and I think we can meet it. We're taking a risk leaving the MBA as is, but I think if we can get people in the door they may want to make the house their own at that price point. FWIW, the 'high iq' remark was not meant as a compliment to myself-it meant that you'd think I'd be smart enough not to do this to myself, not what my iq actually is. Especially when coupled with the other terms I called myself like "bad tempered". It's such a joke on any discussion board, the person making the most mistakes is the one boasts the high iq. Guess next time I need to hold up my sarcasm card while posting...

Letters sent out today to neighbors on each side of our lake property with new house on the lot and our intentions. they have ten days to protest. We are in the setbacks, so I don't see any issues. Old house coming down April 15th. Sunny...you are moving along.

FINAL UPDATE: Cash is being wired into my account per escrow agent so we are done! Hooray! We sold for $1.23M and the winning buyers threw in an additional $2,000 credit toward our closing costs. As mentioned earlier, we received 15 bids (all of which were above list price) and we countered 5 of the strongest bids. The final top two bids were both for $1.23M without any contingencies and in as-is condition. Ultimately, the winning bidders (first-time home buyers who fell in love with the house!) threw in an additional $2K in closing credits and also had a substantial down payment (about 50%) so we knew appraisal wouldn't be an issue. Thank goodness for the larger than standard down payment, as the house appraised for $30K less (only $1.2M). On a related note, I also found out the final sales price of the 2 pocket sales by the same builder in the neighborhood (but they are located on a thoroughfare, not in a cul de sac). One sold for $1.14M (this was in the worst location, right on the corner next to the 4 lane main street). The other one (on the same street but further into the neighborhood) fell out of escrow (its list price per Zillow was $1.1M). The second house is back on the market now at $1.06M. We'll see what happens there. Thanks again for everyone who gave advice and those who followed along!

To tell the truth, I never thought that Marshall & Swift was correct. We had to use it as a third party source, but the valuations were stupid wrong. No one really relies on the Cost Approach. The Sales Comparison Approach is given the greatest weight in residential appraisal. So, get the price per square foot out of your head. It means nothing. You won't know the price per square foot until the project is completed. It's going to be a lot higher than $85. The appraiser works for the lender. End of subject. The appraisal is not to protect you, it's to protect the lender. You pay for the appraisal. It's not yours. Get everything in writing. Get a real estate lawyer to draw up the contract. Be disciplined about your upgrades and change orders. It's good advice to spend your money on insulation, windows and HVAC. It's the stuff you can't see that makes the difference to how good a house you get.