patrick.net

If you been living under a rock the last 3 years I'm sure you blissfully unaware of my housing saga. Basically in me and my Wife were shopping for a new house in 2007 and didn't find anything we wanted at a reasonable price. I was a regular on this site at the time, so I was well aware of what was happening in the housing market. In late 2007 we saw something we could loved, it was 460k, well over our price range but the Realtor "offered" the house to us for 410k, but we finally settled on 395k, still a little higher than what I wanted to spend, and I knew the market would continue to slide at least another 10% or so for the next year or two. I felt this was a pretty decent deal at the time.

Flash forward three years later, me and my Wife are still gainfully employed in stable good paying jobs, but my Wife feels that we are house poor and wants to try to downsize. I of course told her from the beginning this basic fact, and showed her the numbers before we signed on the dotted line, but "living" it is different from reading about it. It must be a woman thing, I can tell you jumping in front of a speed bus is going to hurt, but I guess women need to step in front of the speeding bus to be sure. Anyway we put about 30k into the house and listed the house for 395k. We need 375k just to break even. (pay off 340k mortgage, Realtor commission, HVAC loan) We had an offer for 340k, we countered offered for 390k, they countered offered for 350k and we countered to 385k. We haven't heard anything back, I really don't expect to anyway, and basically don't care. I'm unwilling to take less then 385k anyway.

My logic? A. I really don't want to sell in the first place, but I'm going through the motions to appease the Wife. B. Looking at other similar sized houses, I really don't see anything priced cheaper. While the price has little to do with the final settlement amount, the number of houses like mine are few and far between. I know, it's the old "my house is special" delusion. But I do have some facts to support my position. (1). The house is on 2 1/2 acres of property, I see lots of houses priced the same or more than mine on 80 x 100 lots. (2). The house is heated by Geothermal, I've seen some comparable houses to mine that are Oil or Propane heat (or worse). (3). The house has 3300 sq. ft. of living space, not including a 3 car garage with 10 foot by 10 foot garage doors, Full basement (unfinished), and standing room attic space with stairs leading to them. Most houses I see are smaller, I see houses with 2500 sq ft and list 5 bedrooms, they must be pretty small, most of the bedrooms in my house are pretty big.

Minuses? The house is on a highway, its lightly traveled, but is still a highway, with a speed limit of 40 MPH. The house has no back deck, it was never built by the original owner, but I never had any $ to build one. the house is custom build in 1990, there are some things that need attention, like the the bathrooms could use a face life, nothing expensive, titled floors and new vanities. the kitchen is acceptable, nice cabinets, but White floors really show any dirt on them. the asphalt driveway is beginning to crack, overall its in good condition, but in a few more years its going to need to be repaved, also a 20 year old house = a 20 year old roof, Another 5 to 10 years going to need a new roof.

#housing