And so it begins, just listed a house

[tractor]

I've had an "extra" house for about seven years, always planned to fix it up as a retirement home, but just don't have the ambition right now. We bought it along with the property since it was right next door to us (next door, country style-1000-ft away).

Anyway, with the way the crazy real estate market, I finally decided to list it yesterday. The realtor suggested a price about double I thought it was worth, and she expected it to sell within the first week.

The clock begins, if it sells like she says, I will be back looking for advice on where best to put the cash. We own the place free and clear, and after listing fees, will still bank in excess of $100k. Being a nice guy, I told my wife we could go out to dinner if it sells 😊

[Deleted]

Sept 26, 2021 8:04:33 GMT -5 tractor said:

bank in excess of $100k. Being a nice guy, I told my wife we could go out to dinner if it sells 😊

Wow. Out to dinner. Your generosity knows no bounds

[Tiny]

Sept 26, 2021 8:04:33 GMT -5 tractor said:

Being a nice guy, I told my wife we could go out to dinner if it sells 😊

Wow!  Dinner in Paris.     Or perhaps while on a 1 month world cruise.  Sounds awesome!! 

[Tiny]

Good Luck on the sale of the house! Maybe it go smoothly from start to finish.

[CCL]

Are you keeping the land?

[tractor]

Sept 26, 2021 8:35:37 GMT -5 CCL said:

Are you keeping the land?

Yes, when we bought the place it was on 20-acres. I've since split the house onto its own 2-acre parcel, and we have merged the other 18 into ours. If this works, we will in essence have added 18 acres for free, plus earned $60k. I'm still skeptical, but this seems to be the way the market is going.

[tractor]

Sept 26, 2021 8:16:59 GMT -5 Tiny said:

Sept 26, 2021 8:04:33 GMT -5 tractor said:

Being a nice guy, I told my wife we could go out to dinner if it sells 😊

Wow!  Dinner in Paris.     Or perhaps while on a 1 month world cruise.  Sounds awesome!! 

Let's not get carried away 😊 maybe I'll allow one bottle of French wine (or at least a glass).

[CCL]

Sept 26, 2021 9:09:37 GMT -5 tractor said:

Sept 26, 2021 8:35:37 GMT -5 CCL said:

Are you keeping the land?

Yes, when we bought the place it was on 20-acres. I've since split the house onto its own 2-acre parcel, and we have merged the other 18 into ours. If this works, we will in essence have added 18 acres for free, plus earned $60k. I'm still skeptical, but this seems to be the way the market is going.

That's the kind of deal I'd like to find. Good for you!

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

You may store the money in my accounts. 


Nice work though. I'm glad this has purchase has gone well for you.  

[tractor]

I did not intend this to be a dying thread, so here's a boring update on the process so far. My wife and I both signed all the listing forms, waited two days, only to find out one of the forms was incorrect and now we need to re-sign, no big deal. However, the listing agent apparently has been so busy, it takes her two days to respond, which is making my impatient self irritated.

I thrive on prompt customer service, and these delays are frustrating. Oh well, I know you can't have a strong market, and non-busy agents at the same time. Hopefully the house will officially be listed by the end of the week. I really want to see how long it sits before we receive an offer. I'm not in a hurry to sell, but if the process is as fast as people claim, it should be fun...

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Watching this, as I am trying to figure out where to park the money from the sale of dad’s house.  My share is going to be half this, but after talking to TD, I want to stash it such when my brother needs help I can use it to help him.  

Funny, your mention of forms.  Every form I have needed to sign has had typos on it.  On these forms I received, my address on every single form was incorrect.  It was pointed out, but makes me unhappy in that the lawyer and/or his admin is a lousy proofreader.  

I also had to write a check to NYS for non resident taxes.  

[Bonny]

Sept 28, 2021 10:15:58 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

Watching this, as I am trying to figure out where to park the money from the sale of dad’s house.  My share is going to be half this, but after talking to TD, I want to stash it such when my brother needs help I can use it to help him.  

Funny, your mention of forms.  Every form I have needed to sign has had typos on it.  On these forms I received, my address on every single form was incorrect.  It was pointed out, but makes me unhappy in that the lawyer and/or his admin is a lousy proofreader.  

I also had to write a check to NYS for non resident taxes.  

Congrats on the sale of your father's house Mich! It must be a huge relief that it's over with! 

[tractor]

Still waiting for the listing to hit the market. Apparently there is a shortage of "house photographers" and they are two weeks out to get to a new listing to take pictures.

Seems like a strange delay, I know a few underutilized photographers, so I might suggest the get into the house picture business.

[resolution]

The delay sounds strange. When we listed our home in March, we signed paperwork with the realtor on Monday, pictures taken Thursday, and house was officially on all the listing sites on Friday.

[busymom]

When we listed our place in Florida, most of the delays were due to Covid.  It was especially difficult finding an inspector.

[tractor]

And the fun has begun. The listing went "live" at 5:30 today. I started getting a bunch of texts, apparently the realtor has a system that notifies me when a showing has been scheduled. In the first 30-minute, she had 4 showing scheduled over the next 24 hours.

Let the offers start....

[laterbloomer]

Oct 5, 2021 18:04:32 GMT -5 tractor said:

And the fun has begun. The listing went "live" at 5:30 today. I started getting a bunch of texts, apparently the realtor has a system that notifies me when a showing has been scheduled. In the first 30-minute, she had 4 showing scheduled over the next 24 hours.

Let the offers start....

Wow! That sounds like a strong start! Good luck!

[tractor]

I also now have a dilemma I never planned on, the first showing and pending offer is a friend of the family. If I would have known they were interested in it, even as little as two months ago I never would have listed it.

I expect several offers, and will try hard to keep it a business decision based on the best offer. What do I do if they come in low, but I know they would make great neighbors? If they would have said something before I listed it, they could have saved thousands of dollars...

[CCL]

Good neighbors would be worth a few thousand dollars to me. How do you actually know they would be good neighbors? Are they the type of people who will be knocking on your door, stopping by frequently? That would drive me nuts. Friends don't always make good neighbors.

I assume they knew you owned the place. If it is their dream property, they could have asked you about it previously.

[laterbloomer]

Oct 6, 2021 9:28:44 GMT -5 tractor said:

I also now have a dilemma I never planned on, the first showing and pending offer is a friend of the family. If I would have known they were interested in it, even as little as two months ago I never would have listed it.

I expect several offers, and will try hard to keep it a business decision based on the best offer. What do I do if they come in low, but I know they would make great neighbors? If they would have said something before I listed it, they could have saved thousands of dollars...

I think you are allowed to tell them what your best offer is and give them a chance to match it. You aren't a corporation, nepotism is allowed.

[tractor]

Thanks for the feedback. I think they will be good neighbors because we share similar interests in dogs, guns and hunting, three things that others might find annoying about me.

And when I say neighbors, we are "country" neighbors, as the houses are almost 1000-ft apart 😊

[Bonny]

Oct 6, 2021 10:35:46 GMT -5 tractor said:

Thanks for the feedback. I think they will be good neighbors because we share similar interests in dogs, guns and hunting, three things that others might find annoying about me.

And when I say neighbors, we are "country" neighbors, as the houses are almost 1000-ft apart 😊

I don't think you are legally obligated to take the highest offer...just the best for you. Having had bad neighbors a good neighbor is priceless! 

[tractor]

After some conversation with my bride, we decided to counter the offer from the family we knew, and they accepted. If everything goes through, the house will have been sold within 24-hours of the listing going live.

Six people looked at it, and only one offer was received. Now, we certainly could have gotten more offers in the next week/month had we rejected the first one. However, after a long talk we decided that helping out a young couple, and being able to have a neighbor we have known since his birth, was worth more to us than a few thousand dollars. Both sets of parents were thrilled that we were able to make a deal, and in reality, since the listing price was much higher than we thought it was worth, we still feel like we came out ahead.

It's not done until closing, and if things don't work out the way everyone hopes, we can start the process over. We have nothing but time on our side at this point since it was an "extra" house and isn't factored into more elaborate plans (no plans for the money, yet...).

I started out thinking that we would be sorting through multiple offers much higher than the listing price, while that sounds good in theory, it became obvious it was more greed based than reality based. Sometimes simple is best.

Putting it into perspective, 8 years ago we paid $80k for house on 20 acres. We made no improvements and just sold the same house on 2-acres for $105k. We gained 18 beautiful acres for free, and have some extra $$ in our pocket. Overall, not a bad deal.

Time to start looking for more land 😊

[steph08]

Oct 7, 2021 8:11:10 GMT -5 tractor said:

Time to start looking for more land 😊

As my DH says, they aren't making more of it!  (As I tell him no, I don't have an extra $100k lying around to buy land ) 

Congrats and hope all goes smoothly!

[CCL]

You can't get a house on 2 acres anywhere around here for $105k. An older 3 bed, 2 bath on 2 acres would run around $350k. A newer one closer to $450k.

[tractor]

Oct 7, 2021 22:47:26 GMT -5 CCL said:

You can't get a house on 2 acres anywhere around here for $105k. An older 3 bed, 2 bath on 2 acres would run around $350k. A newer one closer to $450k.

I know real estate prices vary wildly across the US, my house (4,600 sq ft) and property (35 acres) would be valued in the millions in some areas. Around here it's in the low 300's range. One of the big drivers for real estate prices is when people move from more expensive areas and don't mind paying twice as much as any locals will, simply because it's only 1/2 as much as they are used to 😀

[CCL]

I think that's starting to happen here. Amazon, FedEx and other big businesses are building more and more and prices are going up.

[tractor]

So close, but not quite there yet. I'm now in the "I hate my realtor phase" of the process. I told the realtor from the start that the water (well) has not been turned on in the house for over 15-years, well before I owned it.

Yesterday she call and asks if I can get it turned on within the next couple of hours so the inspector can test it out. I replied "nope", you were told it doesn't work and the house is listed "as is". She was furious, and I'm beginning to suspect she is more concerned with cashing her commission check than representing me, her client.

After drinking on it last night (not a typo), I decided I will work on it this weekend and hopefully can get everything hooked up. I'm convinced that she was not listening when we met to discuss all the issues with the house, at this point I don't care if the buyer walks, as I'm in no hurry to sell.

Just another fun phase of the process. Obviously it would be much smoother if I had actually lived in the house, but I've been open and honest through this whole process and I suspect the realtor has been the one to misrepresent the condition of the place to make a quick buck...,

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

So, we live in a small town, and my husband is in a very visible job position. He announced last week that he is resigning from his position.

Yesterday, an employee texted him asking him if their parents could look at our house before we put it up for sale and potentially buy it from us now even though we wouldn’t be listing it until February-ish.


It’s the same concept as the original post, yet I don’t want to “steal” this thread from tractor. let me know if you want me to start my own.

How does the YM collective
Feel about this concept of a private sale?

[tractor]

No worries, feel free to keep your discussion here if you would like.

I would say a private sale will save you some money, you can work directly through a title company to complete the paperwork. You loose any potential to have a bidding war for the property, but there's a chance you will receive higher than market anyway if they know you are willing to work directly with them.