Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Them Ol' House-Sellin' Blues

A quick update on the houseselling front. We have had several open houses now, with varying degrees of interest. The first were attended mostly by neighbors. The most recent was hardly attended at all, but has generated the most serious interest. We ended up with a personal showing this afternoon and two tomorrow. We have been whipsawed so many directions emotionally during this time that we do not know whether to be cautiously optimistic or hopefully cautious anymore.

Ironically, an article about our community's real estate market came out in our local newspaper this week. The recent rate reductions by the Fed are some positive news, but mostly the news is bleak. It is my belief that this has helped contribute to an artificial standoff between buyers and sellers, in that buyers seem to be stuck on the notion that all news is equally bad everywhere, and that therefore all real estate is overpriced everywhere. Without making offers to prove the point, however, that is nothing more than empty rhetoric designed to make the seller bid against himself, not an open market in which the true value of the property can be ascertained.

Okay, so I'm a little tired of people coming to our 95-year-old house and saying in surprise, "ooh, it's old." Well, of course it is. When you saw the ad for the "1912 Craftsman," what exactly did you think those funny little numbers at the beginning meant? Age seems to be an excuse to automatically deduct sums from the perceived value of the home. Again, that's not a free exchange market, that's huffing and puffing. We just want someone to make a real offer. Then we'll see what the house is worth.

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