juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Finished up the MLS listing last night, uploaded all of the photos... so it was ready to go for this morning.

Cool thing is that I got a call at 9am today to setup a showing already... so hopefully that's a sign of things to come... especially since most showings don't happen till the weekend.

Many of you may remember we had the house on the market last year, but pulled it off b/c we could not get the mortgage we wanted. Different story this year, so hopefully we'll have the same luck. Last year we had 3 offers within 2 weeks, including a full price offer. This year we listed the house $5k lower even though it appraised for $10k more then last year, so hopefully that will get us offers even sooner. The quicker we can sell, the quicker we become buyers in this market.

Once we see what kind of action we get on our house we will begin the house hunting process. As I have mentioned before in other threads, we have the luxury of being able to crash with family short-term if needed, so we do not have to go directly from this house to another one. We actually prefer to be under contract with our home before making offers on others, especially since banks do not want contingent offers.

So, we'll see. Similar to BKR, I'll update this thread as things progress...

vas25tl

Good luck with the sale/search!

chill_dog

Good luck! If you don't mind me asking, what neighborhood are you in again? I remember some of the ones you were looking at last year...some great deals out there now in those areas and others. I was looking at some stuff out that way out of curiousity a few weeks ago, and was really surprised at some of the things I was seeing.

e30cabrio

iTrader: (6)

Good luck, hope it sells fast at your price.

hornyleprechaun

Good luck! I was in Charlotte for NYE visiting my wife's sister and it was a fun time.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Thanks all

We live in Quellin.

We bought a lot in Skyecroft in December which was a short sale, and as for our home search, we are focusing in Providence Downs, Providence Downs South, Skyecroft, and Chatelaine. We are also looking at both lakes which is the same distance from Charlotte as we are, just on the other side, but we prefer to stay in this area (Waxhaw/Weddington/Marvin)... so we'll see. Wherever we find the best deal and home we like the most we will go. We have a bunch of houses on our list... some even out of our price range but have been on the market for 6 months... so we're eying a few things

Whiskers

Good luck!

Jonesi

I know a lot of people are kind of rushing around in fear the tax credit will disappear. Probably a great time to list your house. Definitely a incentive for people to buy and soon.


Good luck Jr.

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

Good luck! I remember the thread from last year. Keep us posted.

B K R

Good luck with your sale.

My cousin moved from NY to Charlotte recently. AFAIK, they are closing on their house in NC by next week. However the sale of the house in NYC has been tough, been on market for about 6 months now.

chill_dog

A lady I work with was saying her BF is bitching because there's a foreclosure on his street in Quellin. Hopefully that won't affect your sale. As for the lakes, it's been a while since I looked at anything on Norman, but when I was, for the price, houses on Norman will be comparable to where you are; houses on Wylie (where I have been looking a lot recently) will be larger/have more in them. Regardless of how nice the neighborhood is, Lake Wylie just doesn't have the same panache as Lake Norman or Weddington/Marvin . The taxes in SC are hard to beat, though.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Thanks all

Yeah... kind of a catch 22 on Wylie. Not the same "environment", but nice houses, low taxes and lake living. Norman is awesome, but some areas are a bit further out then we want to be... so we'll see. Like I said... we'll likely stay in the area we're in. We love it here and it's really one of the places to be in the Charlotte market.

There are a total of about 4 foreclosures in here. One sold recently, the next one is not due to hit auction until mid-March... the other 2 have not even foreclosed yet. Funny thing is these same 4 were being foreclosed on last year when we had the house listed. For some reason they are taking a looooong time to go through.... which works out fine for us. We had an appraisal done, plus other homes are selling in our range, so we should be good. We'll see.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

That's why we listed now. Last year we listed in May... but we wanted to be on for the tax credit. That and two HUGE companies are moving their offices to the area... and our agent's firm has the exclusive on one of them... so we wanted to be on the market to take advantage of all of that. I like to wait till all the trees are covered in leaves and the weather is warmer, but with all of those things happening, now was the time. Plus, weather should turn any day now... so we should be good.

dallison

it's great to have inside info like that. I feel the same way about the trees/plants so it makes the place look nice. Our plan in a couple years was to list when everything started to grow, but then we would be behind other listings.

chill_dog

Saw your place this morning (pretty sure it was yours given the landscaping pics you posted a while back). That's a great price for that house. The lady I work with was stunned. If I didn't want the upkeep of a pool, I might be talking to you.

That was always my plan, put the house on the market once the trees have leaves, the grass turns green, and whatever has flowers is flowering. But a buyer who knows anything will realize that those things will happen when the time is right and not to expect such in the winter.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Exactly... had to pick our battles. All of the pics on the MLS show everything in bloom, so it can give those with no vision an idea of what it will look like. We're also not that far out from everything growing. In fact, our day lillies are already coming up.


Yeah, we priced it aggressively just to move it. We want to be buyers in this market ASAP.

Also, let me just say... we are very low maintenence people and setup the house to be that way. We do a spring cleanup (trim, mulch, fertilize), and fall cleanup (trim), maybe a trim on the roses once in between... and that is it. While we love landscaping, we're too busy doing other things... so this house is as low maintenence as you can get. Everything in the yard is on zoned irrigation. The only thing you need to water are potted plants (if you have any). I vacuum once a month, and run a Roomba once per week (although it's in storage now). Stuff like that. Plus, the pool is cake. I put in a bag of salt once per year (usually around April)... backwash maybe 4 times per year (which takes 5 min), and that is it. The entire pool is on timer. The vacuum has it's own pump and is on timer. And after windy days we just need to check the skimmers. I do a water test once a week which takes about 2 minutes, regulate the chlorine by the pool control panel (if necessary), and add muratic acid once per month. That's it. If I put one (1) hour per month into the pool, that's a lot. In the fall there is about a 2 week period where you need to keep the leaves out... but the new owners could always close the pool if they wanted. We just choose to battle the leaves for a couple of weeks and leave it open all year.

This isn't just for my house... any salt-water gunnite pool should be similar. So don't rule it out when you look!


We're hoping that's the case

chill_dog

I changed out every tree and bush in my yard except one to minimize or eliminate maintenance, so I know all about that concept. Interesting/good info on the pool. I would imagine that would apply to any pool, not just salt water gunnite, provided you had a similar automated set up.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Can't speak to the others. I know that some fiberglass pools need a little more maintenance regarding algea... and vinyl pools... well, they likely need the most maintenance of all. Plus, you get one little tear in the liner when a kid jumps in or drops a toy or something, and it's big bucks.

Additionally, if it's a traditional chlorine pool it will require more attention the the salt water pools...

chill_dog

They have those? For inground? Didn't know that. Guess I've never known anyone with one of those; everybody I ever knew had a concrete pool.

Intersting. Wonder why the salt water requires less maintenance (kind of rhetorical, so you don't have to answer even if you know...my lazy ass can look it up sometime).

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

^ Simple answer is that the chlorine levels are much easier to maintain. Using chlorine powder or tablets makes it hard to get the chemicals balanced... so much more manual work required to balance them. With the salt water pools, everything is done via the pool's control panel. So if the chlorine is high, I just hit a button and lower chlorine output. If it's done manually, the only way to remove chlorine is to add water to dilute it and hope that works!

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

It's funny b/c we didn't have any showings scheduled for this weekend, so I was kind of bummed. My wife then reminded me that last year we listed the house in May.. and this year we listed in Feb.

That said, we were outside talking to our neighbors before we went out on Sunday, then again a couple hours later when we got back. Both times people pulled up to look at the house and grab a flyer. Both asked us questions about the house, and we asked them if they wanted to come in. So, we had two impromptu showings yesterday! My neighbor also said that there was a ton of traffic driving by the house and grabbing fliers. So I guess since it hit MLS on Wed/Thurs people were just driving around this weekend and hopefully we'll get some more appointments this week! The people who saw the house all seemed very interested, so we forwarded their info to our agent.

dallison

suite

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

^ Yeah, it was funny... the first couple was already picking out what furniture they wanted to buy with the house. I just told him to have their agent call ours and we'd go from there...

dallison

it's great that there is a lot of interest in the house
that is always great to hear.....until the last signature and the keys are handed over.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

^ Yeah, nothing matters to us until we have cash in our bank account.

Another showing at 5pm tonight... so I gotta head out soon!

moeronn

Good deal on the impromtu showings. With this much interest, you may end up with a slight bidding war.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

That would be awesome.

Silver™

Good luck, if you get your asking price you should be about +10% where you bought, and that is doing good these days.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

^ Yeah, we won't complain. Not too worried about it now b/c we'll make it up on the buy side.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Heading out this afternoon to look at some houses. Had 15 on our list, but our agent did some research and 3 of them will not budge on their price, so we dropped them from the list for now. If they're still on after the summer, we'll revisit.

So 12 scheduled for this afternoon! Not sure exactly how many we'll get to... we have several in the same community, so that makes it easier. Plus, we are pretty quick in and out and we know right away if we will be interested in a house or not... so should be able to hit them all...

B K R

For me the house hunting was probably the most fun part of the process. But 12 houses in 1 afternoon, you guys do have some extreme energy, I would have bogged down after the 6th house. Good Luck on the search.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Back already! Did it in ~4 hours. We really only went to 3 communities... so it wasn't that much driving once we were in each community. Plus, we know what we want, so there were 2 or 3 homes where we didn't even go look at any of the other floors b/c we knew from the kitchen or first floor flow (or whatever it was) we didn't like it. No dilly-dallying...

Out of the 12 homes we liked half of them, with a solid top 3 or 4. One of the homes we looked at was bought by the bank for 1.5 million and is now listed at $550k short-sale. They must be desperate.

So, we have a list for now... just need to sell our home so we can make a move. If they are still available, we can make a play... if not, we'll make a new list

Good thing is that while we were out we got a call for a showing... so that makes 4 showings in 5 days. That's actually ahead of last years pace and we listed in May last year. Hopefully we can get some offers soon

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

^ Correction... the homeowners bought the house for 1.5mil (6/07) and the bank has is listed for $550k short sale.

Anyway, another listing in about an hour. Hope all this action means some offers next week

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Another showing this morning. That brings us up to 7 showing in 6 days total. Plus, they are already scheduling showings for this weekend. Much more action this year versus last. Wonder if it's b/c the tax credit.

Also had our first offer yesterday. It was a lease to own deal though, which we turned down. But again, first offer came quicker this year versus last.

chill_dog

Cool. Part of it might be the tax credit, but I think it's more that people realize it isn't all doom and gloom like the media keeps trumpeting. Yes, there a bunch of people without jobs, but at this point, those with them feel more secure than they did last year. Plus, prices have pretty much bottomed out, and yours is listed at a great price.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

^ Yeah, I think the tax credit is spurring it on a little bit. Hopefully that gets us into contract sooner!!

Had another 3 showings this weekend and one of them we know for sure was a repeat visit... so possibly some offers coming this week. We'll see

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Damn... 3 showings tomorrow! Good thing I have meetings scheduled for most of the late morning, early afternoon... so I'll already be out of the house.

dallison

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Found out one was a return visit from Saturday. They've narrowed it down to two homes and will have a decision by Sunday. May work in our favor that we can move whenever (no kids, no pets, nothing to hold us here). So we'll see

Still early in the season, so if they want the house, they better have an aggressive offer!

B K R

Good Luck.. An early offer could also mean that others who are sitting on fence might want to put theirs in. Hopefully multiple offers can get you the price you are expecting.