Saturday, June 14, 2008

Our rude neighbors are selling their house!

Okay, so it's not their fault that we've been lazily trying to sell our house for years. We just keep waiting for something before we do it. Right now we're waiting for the bathroom to finish itself and the grass and flowers to become jaw dropping (or at least pleasant looking). But it's the selling time of year, even if it's not really a wonderful selling year. And I'm getting pretty sick of having three children in one bedroom. So we're getting ready to put it up.

So last Sunday I came home from Washington to find the people diagonally across the street had a FSBO sign in their front yard! I grabbed a flier, and found out that they have the exact same model home as we do! Shoot! They were asking $196,900, and we've been thinking of asking something in the low 200Ks, so that seemed about right. Our basement is finished (except the bathroom!) and theirs isn't, so ours should go a bit higher (the cost of basement finishing supplies alone is 10-15K, not to mention the labor!). Well, today we saw that their sign was gone. We were hoping either they already sold it, or they just decided not to. Well, this evening they had a realtor's sign up, so I went to grab the new flier. And the jerks lowered their price to $189,000! RUDE RUDE RUDE! It's like stealing money out of our pockets!

So anyhow, they have a blog with their house info & pics on it. I was hoping I could get some unbiased opinions on what could be done better. Not only because we are in direct competition with them, but also so we can have the best possible ad. Oh, and help me come up with a blogspot address that is catchy, but not too totally obviously ripping them off.

4 comments:

Elora said...

Hey, this is the Passey’s. We noticed your blog from the traffic going to our Home For Sale blog and thought we’d address the things you mentioned.

First, we really aren’t in direct competition with you if you have 4 bedrooms. We are jealous that you have 4 bedrooms because we think it would be easier to sell 4 instead of 2.

Also you mentioned that you thought we are stealing money out of your pocket. We have spoke with two different realtor's that have run comparables to our house in The Ranches and price us at $190,000.

Also, you need to know that, as advised by our realtors, we are willing to and probably will be lowering our price still. The housing market we are in right now stinks, on top of that Eagle Mountain is over built and has over 487 homes on the market between The Ranches and City Center. With this being the case all of our property values in the area are falling as people try to sell their homes and are stuck competing with Short Sales and Foreclosures.

We are sorry if us dropping our price feels personal. We, just like you, want to sell our house and unfortunately for both of us we are selling in a bad market. We wish you luck in selling your house and hope both of us can find buyers quickly.

Sorry we had to post on your blog we just didn't have your e-mail address. If you have any questions you can contact us at: 801-885-5936 or christine.passey@gmail.com

miriam said...

uh oh, starting a feud with your neighbors now are you? I like that the biggest argument is you have 4 bedrooms, but why if you have 4 bedrooms are all 3 of your kids in 1? oh that's right, you only have 2 as well! offering such a low price for a house kind of depreciates the value of houses in the vicinity because the price other houses in the area go for play a big part in what you can sell your house for. so that pretty much refutes her arguments. I guess you just need to be more aggressive in selling your house, because definitely the finished basement will make your house more appealing.

Nadine said...

And she can't even use proper grammar. Realtor's. Realtor's what? I hate people who use apostrophes when making a word plural! And I second Mia's comment.

Elora said...

Wow, I’m sorry if what I wrote seemed like an argument or a “feud.” All I meant to do was explain why we are pricing our house where we are because it seemed you have taken it personally. We respect both of you, think you have a wonderful family, and REALLY do wish you luck in selling your house. A previous poster is right that pricing a house lower devalues the price of houses in the neighborhood. The unfortunate thing is homes are ALREADY devalued. As I mentioned our house comps at $190,000. So for what the market is valuing homes at RIGHT NOW we are priced correctly, and that price is dropping as more short sales hit the market. My brother in law is a realtor, so we have access to the MLS, and it’s depressing to watch the cheap homes hit the market. We don’t like this fact, we understand if you don’t either. It’s an unfortunate reality. Once again, we honestly respect you, think you are wonderful people, and wish you luck selling your home.