We decided last year that we might want to downsize, since it's just me and Eddie here now, most of the year. We put our house on the market for six months and it showed a total of TWICE. It's in a great gated neighborhood, and has lots of square footage. We had it priced very reasonably. The market here is just really bad right now. I'm just thankful that we didn't HAVE to sell; that it was just an option for us. But I do understand why lots of people have lost their homes.
We're old. We purchased our home for $39,995 in 1977 with a 30 year 9.75 percent loan. That's before interest went up to 12 percent or so. I retired March 1, 1998 and we paid off our house a few months later. Our loan was set up so that I could pay more than the monthly payment and designate the extra amount to go to either escrow or principle. Latest value of the house for property tax purposes was around $130 thousand.
One of our sons took a job in the Detroit area and moved to Michigan about 3 years ago. He bought a house in Saline which is right next to Ann Arbor. It's a beautiful house. He was driving 45 miles to work one way but was also out of town a lot on business. This past November he quit his job and now has a job in North Carolina. He has been living and working out of North Carolina and just gets home with his family in Michigan about every other weekend. We have been praying that his house in Michigan would sell. Things are not good for the real estate market in Michigan. The asking price was higher than other homes in the neighborhood. He called my wife one day last week and said the house was sold. That was an answer to prayer. He told us a couple of weeks ago when he stopped by here that he expected to take a 50-60 thousand dollar loss on the house because of market conditions in Michigan. The house sold after being on the market for 4 months and after being shown about 60 times.
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Sam also known as Jim Ellis
Apostolic in doctrine
Pentecostal in experience
Charismatic in practice
Non-denominational in affiliation
Inter-denominational in fellowship
My sister tried to sell her home here and had it on the market for over a year. She did have an offer for $20K less than what she paid 4 years ago... she turned it down. She has put $15K into it putting in wood floors and other upgrades....so really that would have been a $35K loss..
I think she plans to just stay put. I think the house market is bad about anywhere... I know I am not selling anytime soon.
Our market is fine. The house we bought 7 years ago has almost doubled in price. The prices are still going up, just not as fast.
Our area had very few of the interest only and ARM loans. The banks are more interested in making a steady profit than a killing. I work for a newspaper and I think there has been maybe 3 foreclosures so far this year.
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