I bought a condo 11 years ago. Paid 550K, with dues, taxes, improvements (over $5K recently) and special dues have paid over $700K in total (but had a place to live in all those years).
The market was going crazy here in May and June so I decided to list it after encouraged by an agent acquaintance. My ultimate goal is/was to retire sometime next year and be nomadic. It was freeing to get rid of so much of my stuff. A great friend let me move a limited amount of my stuff into his home, and I plan to stay there for the few months I need to next year. From sept 13-Jan 20 I will only be in town for 12 days. So I was hoping to be in contract on my home in August.
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Neighbor identical unit sold for $777K on father's day weekend (actually all things being equal mine is easily worth 10K more - end unit, better view, covered parking). Market was showing signs of slowing in late July but 2 weeks before I listed mine, a similar one down the street (slightly larger) listed for $725 and sold for $800 with 6 offers. So we thought we would list for a low ball of $725 and hopefully get multiple offers and land around $750. This was the expert opinion by the local agent.
Well, that has not happened at all. In hindsight, August was a very poor time to list. It's now been on the market for 3 weeks and we reduced the price to $699 already and still little foot traffic. Having 1 open house per weekend for last 3 weeks (2 opens on listing weekend).
Agent has incurred some costs - photography, printed materials, and they paid for staging.
I'm 2 weeks out from leaving the country for extended time and have to decide what to do. Choices:
1) Leave it on the market, sitting empty indefinitely, except the few days I'm in town I can live there. I don't expect the agent to stage much longer. If it doesn't sell by October, remove and list again in the spring.
2) Try to find someone to sign a 6-month lease. In the spring, we list it again. Probably could get in the range of 2000 to 2400 for rent. Agent would broker so they could get paid back for their incurred costs.
3) keep on dropping price until it eventually sells. I'm already sick that I'm close to 80K below what the neighbor sold. Some guys have all the luck.
Agent is sort of pressuring me towards #2. If they hadn't paid for various things, I would probably go towards #1.
The really sucky thing is they gave me advice to get rid of everything so I hardly have any furniture, no bed because we assumed it would sell right away and I'd need to get rid of these things before I leave the country. Due to such a quick turnaround, I gave most of it away (I think if there was time I could have sold some of it and netted as much as $400)
I hope I'll get the call this week that someone is making an offer but due to my impending time out of the country, I need to make some huge decisions quick.
FYI... this is in the Seattle eastside area.