03-07-2013, 10:52 AM
OrsunVZ Wrote:Firstly, very few people buy homes over the Dec/Jan time frame, and then there is a big push that coincides with school schedules (nobody wants to move in the middle of a school year if they can help it). This translates to people not putting homes up because if you know it has a better chance to sell at full value during a seasonal flux, then as a seller you don't put it up early. The longer it sits on the market, the more a buyer wonders what is wrong with this, and statistically, houses that stay on the market longer than average tend to sell lower compared to their appraised value than houses that sell quickly.
This was our biggest problem. We basically decided to sell late in the season last year and put the house up in July. Then it got to October with no buyer and we didn't want to break up my son's school year so we put a June 2013 closing on the listing. Now it's March and the house has been on the market for like 250 days and it looks bad.
The only positive thing I can look at it is that the cheaper houses in our area, which mine is, are getting gobbled up quickly (I think we have a lot of Hurricane Sandy people not rebuilding their homes and buying inland) and I really feel like our house is the best of the bunch currently listed in our town. We have a re-show today, hopefully it works out. It's just scary because even if we get an offer, the inspection process will freak me out. There's definitely problems with our house. Old wiring, leaky screen house, the burner is ancient. I just never saw this house as anything other than a starter home so I didn't want to dump money into it.