The housing market isn't treating us so well here.

[Natalie's Nesters]

I'm sorry you are going through this. We have had our house for sale in Montana for over a year. This year we have had 7 showings. Our biggest competition is foreclosures. We can not win against 15 pages of foreclosures. We are blessed to have a good renter in there now. We are thinking about pulling of the market until spring as well. Best of luck to you and your family.

[MomToTwoBoys]

Have you asked your realtor to hold an open house for agents only? This lets other agents know about your house and they can do the trickle down effect and get the word out to their clients.

Have you tried staging the home like in a magazine? Hide all your clutter, organize the closets so its 'pretty' and place simple clear glass vases with a tiny flower in it on the dinging table, coffee table, mantle, bathroom etc etc. Make your home look 'shee shee poo poo' just like Style & Home. Sounds silly but have you tried the baked goods smell flowing through the house? It helps others viewing the home picture themselves living there baking themselves. Maybe buy a cheap cake display holder an place a plate of freshly baked (bite sized of course) cookies in there during open house w/water & cups?

Maybe have the realtor change the wording on the MLS page since its not attracting many people. Did you change the pic of the dumpster in front of your house? Maybe make that a 2ndary shot to show the new roofing.

Is there a rule or clause in your contract with said realtor stating that you can't list it on your own? I see a lot of homes going up for sale here and its listed by owners. Have you tried: Property Guys.com

Just tossing out ideas for you to help make sure you've exhausted all your avenues before you drop your price again.

When the selling competition is TLCs and foreclosures, I can't compete with that. The realtor did change the wording on the listing and he did remove the picture of the bin in the driveway. I made the house more pretty than it's ever been and more pretty than what's selling, but it's not working.

We'll just have the realtor over this weekend and see.

[Nishu]

Good luck, I hope you get it sold quickly. Geobachelor-ing sucks. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

[Greebo]

I really hope you'll reconsider buying a new house before selling your old one.

But good luck, whatever you decide.

[MomToTwoBoys]

Well I think that after all of what's gone on, we'd just be happy renting temporarily anyways.

Things between DH and I have gotten way better. I think the distance is sort of showing us that we both need each other. I'll see how things are after we get moved and get settled.

I'm starting to think that it's either the agent that isn't working hard enough or the fact that the house is sort of sterile. Things are all put away and there's no "home" feel to it. I don't mean the whole cookies thing. I mean that there's barely any home decor showing in terms of accessories and everything seems extremely clean. But I'm concerned that spending any more money on staging the house isn't going to net anything, considering a house is pending that's been on the market for five months that's sold for just $5k above what we listed (it's also 800+ square feet and detached).

[MomToTwoBoys]

We reduced the price on the house. We now realize that we weren't in tune with market conditions as much as we thought we were. As such, the price on the house was reduced about 5%. We're a good $13k lower than we were, so hopefully we'll net something soon. As long as we can lock away about $80k profit, we'll be fine. If we don't, it'll take a lot of negotiating to get something suitable to move into.

In the end, we'd be debt free and able to start putting money back into savings again. We'd all be together and that's what we want.

[MomToTwoBoys]

This is how I feel right now.

DH wants to give his new work another week to see if he really wants to stay there. If not, he wants to try to get into the company that now deals with the account he was in charge of for five years. He's really not happy at all. I guess the place he's in now isn't easy to learn anything in and it's a complete 180 from what he did for a long time. He understands this, but when he wants help from people, he gets the cold shoulder.

I'm frustrated and at the same time, I want to be supportive. I want us to be together but I don't want him to be miserable. I told him I would only agree to moving to Edmonton if he liked the job he was getting into there.

So now I don't know what to do. If we sell the house, we can buy another one here but have it be the house that we want. If we don't sell the house and he goes to another company here, we'd have to put our plans on hold to move to Edmonton. I told him we could even check out detached homes that are selling right now and get one where we'd like to be.

I'm flustered, frustrated and in a state of ugh right now. We accumulated debt to get the house fixed, so if we want to clear that debt, we'd have to sell. We can't afford tacking on another debt payment to pay off the money we've invested in the house.

So what's a girl to do?

[LuLuBleen]

I'm flustered, frustrated and in a state of ugh right now.

Anyone in your position would be. You're playing the waiting game with the house and, now, with the job situation. Also, I know it's cliche but, it's the holiday season and that just makes any stress that much worse.

Sounds like you want out of your current house regardless of where your husband works. So, once the house is sold, your whole family can go (rent) wherever it's most convenient till you're absolutely sure where you want to be planted. Moving twice is a huge pain, to be sure, but it's better than feeling stuck in a house that's costing too much and doesn't feel like home.

Sorry about all the drama you're experiencing now. Vent here at FV as needed so you won't feel like exploding.