Time for an update: I sat everyone down a few weeks ago and had a serious talk. I told them I'm broke supporting two households, and we need to sell the house, husband can go live with his brother (see above why this is such a good idea), and son can live with me and his sister in apartment.
Kids were completely supportive, husband not so much. I understand, he has been blindsided, and it's his life that will be affected the most. He did come around, though, about selling, apologizing for being unsupportive initially. He has been cleaning up/touching up and working on the yard, etc, doing what he can. I am working on my husband to agree for me to make a phone call to ask family for help, and let him live with his brother and his wife. I don't mind making this very difficult phone call, because I have to take charge before the bottom drops out. There's no room for argument here, it needs to be done.
The problem here is the house still has the original 25 yr old nonleaky roof, and it needs foundation work in the front. Banks won't make a loan because of these problems, even though our home is lovely (needs paint/carpet/new countertops, that's about it for cosmetics). Our listing agent, who is a trusted friend doing this for half the usual commission, found a roofer and foundation company who will do the work now and be paid at closing, but my husband, being in construction, is too paranoid about predicted costs (about 23k for roof/foundation) going higher because of unforeseen problems. The investors she found mostly were not interested because of the roof/foundation work, although one low-balled us by about 80k. This leaves us back to finding investors who would be ok with the extra work (because I'm not up to fighting about it or forcing the issue). We will be competitive, especially because the house needs a roof and foundation work. But because this is our retirement money, we can only go so low. I know investors are looking for great deals, and there is *some* money to be made here, but I guess it just depends on the investor. Sorry, I really don't know how it all works.
If anyone has any input on what we need to do to get exposure to investors, or any other suggestions, I'd much appreciate it.
Otherwise, we're done with the horrid state testing at school, and now it's field trips and fun for the kids until June. My Special Ed dept will be doing lots of end of year paperwork to get ready for next year. We're losing our other sped teacher, who won't put up with the shenanigans from administration, although I warn her there's going to be b.s. wherever she goes and she won't have ME to work with. She says she knows, but she can't abide by what our upper level folks do here. Daughter has a new boyfriend (polite, respectful, cute, generous, etc!) and a GREAT summer job, and son has gotten interested in camping of all things. Luckily his best friend was an eagle scout and his parents have every piece of equipment you could possibly need in their garage.
I'm going to crosspost this in the real estate part of the forum, hope that's ok.