Selling (and shining up) an albatross - updating

[sun rat]

Who knew that making the decision to sell this house was so stressful? I'd been weighing the options, sell or rent, for the last six months, but getting the tax bill was the deciding factor. Besides, I am tired of being surrounded by my grandparents stuff.

Now a whole new level of stress is going to be making me puke, namely realtor crap, and getting rid of everything. Advice is greatly appreciated.

some points: i own it outright. it's in a decent neighborhood. just got a new roof.

[Metalredneck]

From what I'm seeing of real estate, grab your ankles. 2013 has some new surprises, and liquidity will be king.

[SpecialK]

I don't know your situation too well, but maybe it's reasonable to sell off some of the less desireable grandparent stuff in order to pay the taxes. As Metalredneck said it's a tough market and it's always tough to find rent that's cheaper than taxes.

[Bigshankhank]

Are you still in Texas? Housing prices are pretty stable here compared to other places (I'm looking at you, Florida!). Sell away, you will likely not have much problem, and a decent realtor is not hard to find. They are not like car salesmen.

[sun rat]

Yes, still in Texas, 30 miles due south of Fort Worth.

If I get even 2/3s of what the tax office says the house is worth, I'll be able to buy a foreclosure (or three) up close to the university in Arlington where my daughters go to school now so they won't have a long commute.
Several houses on my street have sold suddenly within the last month.

I've just never had to deal with a realtor before.

[stiles]

Advice for sellers:

clean the place up inside and out, mow and edge the lawn, and a bit of sprucing up inexpensive details (small broken fixtures, burned out light bulbs, worn carpeting in one room, interior paint or exterior trim paint) can pay off. Remove awful blinds, obnoxoius drapes, trim or remove overgrown vines/shrubs, stuff like that. Make sure no bad smells, stains, bugs, cat odors and the like. Doing a little staging helps houses sell - some decent but inexpensive furniture, cookies baking in the oven during an open house is an old trick, flowers in a vase, etc.

Make sure your realtor only works for you - no dual agency. I actually prefer using an attorney as my selling agent, since he is unquestionably working only for me. This pays off for...

...deposits. Make damn sure your realtor or lawyer gets deposits on time, and for the right amount, and that you know what the terms are for forfeited deposit money. Get at least 5% down, preferably 10% or more, at signing or as soon as possible after that. My lawyer put the money in his escrow account, and made it clear to my buyer when he wasn't going to show up at settlement that he was giving the money to me as soon as the guy failed to show on settlement day. My realtor, by contrast, failed to even get the deposit at all once, and the other time wouldn't give the money to me after the buyer defaulted unless the other guy gave him permission (which will never happen) or I got a court order - and even then the realtor agreement entitled them to half of the forfeited funds, even though they didn't have to help sue the defaulted buyer to get those funds released.

So yeah, lawyer.

More deposit money down generally means the buyer is less likely to walk away from the deal. One set of buyers walked away from $2,000 after 90 days - wasted time for me - but the buyers who put down $25,000 to my lawyer showed up right on time and completed the deal after he told them he was giving me the money the day they didn't show up at the table.

Beware of very long settlement terms (over 90 days is a big red flag around here). Shorter 30-60 day settlements are usually better, and you might want to require a larger deposit for a longer settlement term since it is keeping your property off the market while in force.

Pay attention to your disclosure form and be honest when you fill it out.

You might (or might not) want to get your own home inspection and appraisal done in advance so you have an idea what it's worth, and what problems will be discovered by the bank's/buyer's home inspection so you can take care of smaller problems that may hurt the home's curb appeal.

[rc26]

If you are going to sell off some of the contents, do it now. It would be a pain to move them to the next place. The "Spring" market will be here soon. February is considered part of the "Spring" market. Get cracking!

[sun rat]

I really have a hard time with the idea of selling a lot of this stuff. Fortunately I have a bunch of adult kids who can take a lot of this stuff off my hands.

But yeah, the cleaning out of my grandmother's collections has already started. I got rid of almost all the xmas stuff a couple of days ago. The crystal and china has to go next. Whenever the house goes on the market (hopefully in early January) I want to be down to the comfortable necessities. but there's a long way to go till then. fortunately i'm on break till january 14th.

[BillyName99]

One thing to do is have the house appraised.

The reason for this is that if it's an inheritance, your Basis (what you would have paid for the house in the current market) is stepped up to that amount, regardless of what the original owner paid.

This is for tax purposes; For example, If you sell the house for $250,000, and the original price paid by your grandmother was something like $60,000, you could be taxed on the profit of $190,000.

If you have it appraised, at $225-$230 thousand, you can claim only $25-$30 thousand in 'profit'.

It might also be based on the market value of the house as of the day it became yours, depending on the tax laws.

You might have already known this, but I figured that it wouldn't hurt to bring it to your attention.

I'd also advise contacting the IRS and double checking the laws on this, just to be sure.

[rc26]

There may be capital gains taxes as well.

[stiles]

Yeah, you'll want to talk to an accountant familiar with state and federal tax law well in advance of putting the house on the market to minimize your tax liability. Last I checked, you could keep a certain amount of capital gains tax free when selling your primary residence, if you've been living there for 2 years or more. There are also federal tax laws regarding quick rollovers of funds from one residence to the next if completed within a certain amount of time.

TL:DR - you might save a big pile of cash if you structure your sale and subsequent purchase of a replacement residence correctly according to federal tax law.

[sun rat]

Thanks for all the advice. I am going to talk to someone this next week about the taxes.

Now I am starting to freshen up the house. I really don't have a lot of money to do major upgrading, but then nothing really big is broken.

Some things have been really messed up though from having a toddler in the house. She got a sharpie and drew on the wood paneling, wood trim and the wallpapered wall in one area of the kitchen. Nothing that I used worked to get the stuff off without leaving damage, except fortunately it did come off the counter. How hard is it to switch from wallpaper to paint?

[sun rat]

and is it okay to glue back down the one place where the bathroom linoleum (otherwise in excellent shape) is coming up at a seam?

[12ci]

I love Pec-12 Photo Emulsion Cleaner. it was specificly formulated to remove Sharpie ink from (traditional silver halide) photos without harming the emulsion, and is a great solvent for many household chores. (hard to say what it may do on/to wood paneling, tho.)


purists may scoff but people have been known to paint right over wallpaper. some inks bleed through standard paints, so you may need to strip off the paper anyway, or cover with Kilz.

[sun rat]

I love Pec-12 Photo Emulsion Cleaner. it was specificly formulated to remove Sharpie ink from (traditional silver halide) photos without harming the emulsion, and is a great solvent for many household chores. (hard to say what it may do on/to wood paneling, tho.)

Thanks! I will definitely look for it and give it a try. I'm afraid of the expense of replacing what was ruined, so if i can just remove the ink, it is always possible to revarnish the cabinet wood.

purists may scoff but people have been known to paint right over wallpaper. some inks bleed through standard paints, so you may need to strip off the paper anyway, or cover with Kilz.

i was thinking i'd have to strip it down anyway. she grabbed the dark blue sharpie.
i did see some wallpaper type stuff that was specifically for painting over. but it was at walmart. i'll look for it at home depot.

[sun rat]

being a no job having lowlife student burning through a lump sum inheritance really throws a monkey wrench into stuff sometimes.
the kids were not happy with the idea of me selling the albatross. so today i went to my bank to see about getting an equity loan on the albatross and using that money to buy a couple of foreclosures in arlington, one to live in, and then rent this one out to pay on the loan.

but no. i apparently need this thing called a job before i can get a loan on a paid-for house.

pfft. silly bank.

back to selling it.

[sun rat]

The house has been on the market for nearly two months. until this past weekend, we only got 6 calls and three of them were no shows, and one of which was an opportunist looking for a post tornado deal.

i have dogs and trust issues with doing the lockbox thing so no lockbox. i also have a bunch of kids and grandkids so on any given day there are more than two people here, and sometimes they are little people.

and i have serious authority issues so every time she calls with "feedback" from people who've looked at the house, i get pissed off. it's always something i either refuse to change (like the rose of sharon bush by the front door), or it is something out of my control, which apparently a lot of things are.

so basically i am updating this for accountability. because i am SO gonna cut that bitch. and now it's out in public so i can't.

[Pintgudge]

It's good to be accountable, I suppose. . . .

The "She" that is so annoying, who is it? Your real estate agent?

If so, is she the only one in town? Competition makes people act nicer.

I hope things get better for you.

[sun rat]

yeah, that bitch is the real estate agent. but now my cousin wants to hook me up with a realtor/friend of hers.

so much stress and too few knives in my house (since most are packed away and i sold the guns).