Selling in a Buyer's market

We have been debating for years when to put our condo on the market. It seems like a simple decision, get a realtor, decide on the price and wait for the offers. Accept offer and ka-ching money! money! money! But wait, this is 2009, in the midst of the wallstreet and stock meltdown, highest unemployment rates and basically despair over an unstable real estate market. In 2004, usually condos will be on the market for 1-2 days and then it's bindered, never mind that it looks like c**p but since inventory was very low, there's bidding wars left and right. And yes, we decided to put our condo on the market. We just decided that the same way one cannot time the stock market, it's much the same with real estate. There has to be a motivation for the sale whether it's for money for retirement, or selling to relocate or even to downsize. We cannot rely on timing the market like is it the best time to sell or to hold, but rather is it the BEST time for our family to move on..is it in my family's best interest to sell..will the stress and pain of moving and putting our house on sale be beneficial to my family at this time? These are the questions that we pondered and debated for a long time before we came to our decision. We kinda kept postponing selling coz of a lot of reasons, some reasonable and some unessential..like the condo is not yet spiffied up for spring season..then I got pregnant we wanted to wait for the baby to be delivered so I was literally painting the master bedroom when I went into labor and delivered 4 hours after that. Finally we put up the place for sale..it's hard setting a price on a HOME, it's not just a apartment with 4 walls and a roof..but it was our first place, being immigrants in this country, being able to buy your own home is an american dream come true. We poured our love, sweat and hard earned funds into making this strange house into our home. Ripped out carpets smelling of cat and God knows what else. My first child was born and raised here and so did my second baby girl. By now we are sure that we want more for our family, and believe me, no McMansion for us. Just and additional bedroom and a little backyard. I always joke around to my friends that kids need to be let out in the backyard once in a while.

So our home is on the market, we had to "de-personalize" it first. Remove pics of the family, and believe me those HGTV shows doesn't really show the reality of the hardships of selling your house. Realtors calling 30 mins before they show your place..trying to keep it clean and de-cluttered, we cannot cook coz it's gonna smell. I was initially addicted to watching those designer shows but after a few months on the market, it just gets tiring. House selling shows on tv doesn't really convey the emotions the sellers go through. It's an internal emotional war between dread and anticipation, hope and despair, highs and lows. The first few weeks on the market everytime I get a call to see the property, I was so elated, and let me tell you this, I put a lot of effort in cleaning and sprucing up the place. In my mind I am thinking.."Is this it?..are we gonna get an offer?" And I pack up the kids and wait somewhere till the realtor and his clients leave. Most of the time it's inconvenient, like it's my babies naptime, or I just came from my night shift work and instead of sleeping, I would be cleaning coz someone is coming in an hour. I can't count the number of times I have slept in the car in the parking lot while waiting for the people to leave. And each and everytime I wait anxiously if this time I'm gonna get a call that we have an offer. It's been 133 days. And we had several offers, too low to even mention. When I say low, ridiculously, insultingly low that even my realtor was upset. But now, the anticipation is gone, all I can think about is "When is this gonna end?!!!!" I don't mean to whine or rant..but hey this is my blog after all. We finally get an offer that seems reasonable, despite the fact that we dropped our price already, and the offer is less than our listed price. But it's doable, negotiable. And the only thing is to weigh which is more important to us. After this, I think we are gonna take our time before buying a house, if you visit us and the apartment looks a little cluttered, well I did promise myself I am going to let my OC side go on a very long vacation and the rest of me to take a vacation from intensive cleaning. I'm gonna fry and cook all my favorite strong smelling foods..and lastly have more time to blog.