Nicky Pass

I've had my condo for sale since the end of May and I haven't even had a low-ball offer! I paid $192K for in in 2005...yes, I know, I bought at the worst time!

Its a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom manor/townhome in the Chicago suburbs.

I've put laminate flooring and new paint into it....it has an updated kitchen and barthroom. I started at $195K.....then $190K.....then $185K....then $180K, and now I'm at $174,500! I'm priced very competitively....I'm just wondering what else I can do to sell this place. I have alot of money put aside for a house, but I have to sell this place before I can go forward.

Here is a link to my place....
http://www.starckrealtors.com/search...sortby=1&row=9

leftride

iTrader: (1)

have you had any showings?

place looks great, the only negative thing would be that it has been on the market since May, but I'd expect that would just give you low-ball offers...

gatrhumpy

iTrader: (1)

Now we know where the next kegger is!

Your place is nice, very nice. It would be a great starter, but maybe just not what people are looking for near your area.

NSXNEXT

iTrader: (2)

Says who?

Are people coming to see the house?
Have you had any open houses?
How many other units on the market?
What do you know about them?
Have you gone inside them?
What has sold in the last 90 days?

My one suggestion is to keep everything neutral. I'm sure you love the red walls but prospective buyers sometimes have a hard time seeing past the cosmetic. Make everything neutral as possible. Consider painting over the red.

Probably not going to make you feel better but it took my wife and I over a year to sell our townhouse.

You need to make your home unique. You want people to look at your home amongst all the others in your development and understand why it's priced where it is. Otherwise it's just another condo.

hornyleprechaun

It's a tough market.. my parents have had their house on the market for at least 2 years now... maybe 3. Although my Dad hasn't tried to upgrade the kitchen or master bath yet.

Your place looks nice, but I'd definitely paint over the red... If someone is looking at pictures and they hate red then they won't look at your place.

Izzy-Type-S

iTrader: (1)

PM me, I am realtor with RE/MAX in the Chicago area and may have some ideas. Something isn't adding up, the place looks GREAT and you're in a great area...however, the only thing I can see affecting you is only having the 1 bath...most at that price will have the 1/2 bath or a 2nd full bath which people really want.

Nicky Pass

Thats probably it, but I don't see why SOMEONE wouldn't be interested in it. I could see the red, but its just paint!

subinf

Call HGTV and have them take a run at it.

hornyleprechaun

Yes it's just paint, but it's red Some people are lazy and don't want to paint. It is also a pain to paint over red and you have the red in more than one place.

Could be that it only has one bathroom.

MR1

Profile states that all rooms are upper level, is this correct?
As NSX says, priced OK according to who or what?
What are similar units in your complex listed and selling for over the past 30-60 days?
Sometimes listings get stale from being on the market for extended period and agents stop showing them. Perhaps pull it off market for a week or so and get a new MLS#.
G/L

Nicky Pass

I've gone to the open houses in the area....I can honestly say that my is 5 times cleaner then the few that I've looked at. My realtor sends my area details that get updated daily. I'm priced 3 lowest in the entire complex....and only one has sold in the last 60 days and it was a 2 bed 2 bath and it sold for $180K...asking 189,999

NSXNEXT

iTrader: (2)

what else is currently for sale?
Any more 2 bath units or are they all 1 bath?

Scrib

Condos are a bitch to sell even in a good market. And in a market like this, if you need to get out, prepare to bend over and basically give the place away.

Nicky Pass

If I sell it for 170K, I walk away with $20k of the $38K I put down

Sarlacc

So why dont you hold on to it and rent it?

Ken1997TL

subinf

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Not only will that allow you to at least get your condo occupied, you may be able to make money off of it. At the very least you should be able to cover your monthly obligations with the rent (hopefully). You can also tell anyone interested in renting that is available for sale. Plus, once someone rents it and moves in, they may fall in love with it and want to buy it!

Additionally, pulling it off the market will reset the "days on market" counter meaning if you re-list it in the spring of 2010, "days on market" will start at zero again...

johnnysquire

You're not priced VERY competitively if the only sold comp is a 2BA unit selling at $180K. Asking prices don't mean much, especially if they're not 1 BA units.

The diff between A $175K mortgage and a $180K mortgage is like $25 a month. A renter would happily pay WAY more than $25 to have a real roommate setup. And that assumes everything else is equal between the units. Look at the rental market if you want a scientific calculation of what the extra bath is worth. $160K ask would be aggressive, but you're still not going to get the traffic that a 2BA gets.

The staging looks good (Mrs. Squire is a stager), but I'd agree with something less personal than red walls. Use whatever they're showing at Pottery Barrel this week.

Street Spirit

How many open houses has your realtor held? How much has she pushed showing the place to potential clients and to other realtors? How much advertising has she done? Do you feel she's doing a good job?

Aside from that, I would consider the possible benefit of taking the house off the market for a while...people are sometimes afraid of houses that sit on the market and don't sell. It doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with the place, but it gets people wondering, and sometimes that's enough to push them away from even looking at it...they start to wonder why so many other people must've gone through the place but didn't put in an offer..."There must be something going on with that place!...". Re-list it in a while so it appears as a new showing. Plus, at this point with the DOM, your listing is WAY at the bottom of the list for prospective buyers who are browsing the MLS. Winter-time is also the slowest season to sell, so aside from the market conditions themselves, now will be a tough time to get people in.

As others have suggested, you can always continue living there and try again in the Spring when the market will naturally pick up (even just a bit), or consider renting it for now to earn some money on it. I would not take the huge loss you are projecting from your numbers (incl. downpayment)...it just doesn't make sense to push a sale to lose so much. What's the big rush? Even if you wait a year or less, at least earn something (or even just come out even) on this property....

moeronn

As others have said, your place does look really nice and clean, but the red (at least in the kitchen) should be painted over. The fireplace accent wall could stay or go.

Also, I think you are priced a little high - as are others in the area. The last home that sold in your neighborhood was a 2/1 for ~$165k. No, it isn't as nice as yours, but that's the only thing that has sold in the last 3 months. There are also 3 other 2/1 units listed in your neighborhood for around the same price as you, plus a 2/2 listed less than yours (don't know what the condition of the 2/2 is since there are no pictures).

What is your realtor doing to get your unit noticed? Is she doing any marketing? Any open houses? After this long, it may be time to look for a new agent.

Renting the place out could be a good idea if you can get close to break even. Not sure your exact terms of your loan or the rental market, but you are probably paying about $1k/mo of PI. Then you have almost $300/mo HOA, ~$300/mo taxes and then insurance on top of that. Not sure you can rent it for $1600/mo. It's definitely worth looking into - just depends on how much rent you can get or how much you can afford to pay out of pocket each month.

Good luck and keep us posted.

subinf

I don't mind the red in the kitchen although I do think that you are limiting the number of buyers it will appeal to.

I would suggest matching your appliances. I like the cabinets but the white fridge and black stove clash and don't really fit in with the rest of the kitchen.

wonton

man this thread makes me want to buy a house now. I gotta wait another 5 more years till i can purchase a house

The Dougler

iTrader: (1)

Man, if you moved that place to Toronto you'd be pulling in 300K and it would be sold in 5 days. Have you thought about ditching your realtor, maybe they aren't doing enough. What's your motivation to move? need more space? growing family? If there's no huge reason to take the loss on the sale there's 2 things I would do.

1. Rent it out and just try to cover costs. At the end of the day someone is paying into your equity.
2. Refi to a variable open mortgage if you haven't already, this will help in 2 area's it will make renting and covering your costs easier, or if you end up staying in the place a little longer it will help you pay down more of your principle quicker because less of your money is going towards interest.

Nicky Pass

The association only allows 3% for rental units and they are currently at 7%. The only way I could rent it is if it was to a family member.....and to do that, I have to go to the monthly meeting and present my case, then wait until the next month to see if it passed.

As for putting more work into it....I don't want to spend money to get nothing out of it. You should have seen some of the crap that has sold....I don't think its my appliances!

subinf

I know, but having shit that matches makes a much better impresion

svtmike

Well since you don't seem to want to take any of our suggestions, what's the purpose of this thread again?

Will Y.

1) The single bath would be a HUGE issue-- that's what would eliminate a 2-bedroom condo from consideration for me.
2) The kitchen would look much nicer if the appliances all match-- can you get black cover panels for the fridge and stove top cover? If not, maybe investing a couple hundred into a used black refrigerator would help you sell the place.
3) I like the red accent walls.

Nicky Pass

Some of the suggestions are good, but I don't really want to spend money on the place when I'm gonna take a bath on it already.

svtmike

There's not a lot of money involved in paint.

Wishful thinking and denial aren't going to get anyone to sign on the dotted line.

vas25tl

I agree with painting it - you want to keep neutral colors - some people would pass on a place JUST because of the color on the walls. It's a very small investment that makes a world of difference.

It's a nice area, I don't think the price is bad....I'd look at possibly looking at other realtors.

LuvMyTSX

Your place looks really nice. Unfortunately, it's the lack of a 2nd bathroom that would keep me from even considering it. Even more unfortunate, there's really nothing you can do about that.

Winter is not the best time to try to sell a house. I'd probably think about taking it off the market until spring. Maybe switch realtors and/or have more open houses.

I really like the cleanliness of your place. I immediately get turned off from a home that is dirty or hasn't been kept up well.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Depersonalization and Neutralization will go a long way when selling a home and it does not cost much money at all. I think the one bath is what is keeping it on the market... so you may have to go even lower if you want to move it.

Also, I do not know how things are in Chicago, but when we sold in NY and had the house on the market here in NC we did only one open house (in NY). All open houses seem to do is attract nosey neighbors. Most of the agents here do not even bother with open houses. Just seems to be a waste of time for the homeowner and the agent. Make sure your agent has a good strategy as far as online marketing. We found that to be our best asset. Our agent listed our house as featured, so whenever you would search in the area, our house would always be on top. Stuff like that moved the house very quickly. Hopefully we have that luck in the spring when we list again

Izzy-Type-S

iTrader: (1)

I do agree with the fact that neutral colors would work best, however, I disagree with the painting idea at a large scale. You did your accent in the right spot by the fireplace which draw attention to an added feature others may not have. You also carried this into the kichen which makes the updated cabinets stand out some. If anything maybe just neutralize one of the walls in the kitchen, the rest looks great. With the 1bath Id worry more about price than anything. Is there any room to do a half bath relatively inexpensive? Maybe like an XL laundry room that can be cut into two rooms or something? Just a thought.

jupitersolo

I haven't read every post. But is the agent busting her hump telling to sell it or is it just listed?

NSXNEXT

iTrader: (2)

Just my but at his listing price, there is no way the agent is "busting her hump". There's just not a lot of money in it for her.

MR1

You say that you don't want to waste more money on improvements. You are losing money every day it sits on the market while you continue to pay. The paint and appliance changes mentioned would cost less than $1500. Yes it is very nice looking but still overpriced for your current market.

The decision to be made is if you are willing to do what you need to do to get it sold? You didn't say why you are planning to sell right now. If there is no serious and compelling reason just stay there.

The Dougler

iTrader: (1)

So why are you moving?

moeronn

Sounds like he wants to move into a house, but it doesn't sound like there is an urgent need to sell/move.

Nicky Pass

I recently got married and I WANT to get into a house now....while the interest rates are low and the prices are low.