What to do when house won't sell?

We don't really want to be landlords, either. That might be a better situation than your current one, though.

Why did the two contracts fall apart? That is the root issue.

I feel your pain, because I recently had to move in with my parents for a few months while I closed on a house, and we have a toddler too. Regarding your situation, assuming you are going to stay where you are, your options are 1) Drop price on the house 2) Rent the house 3) Keep trying to sell the house at current price If you're unwilling/unable to do 1 or 2, there really aren't any other options. You say you don't want to be landlords, but you clearly don't want to own this house anymore either, so you have to decide which is worse. I've been a landlord before and I'm a landlord right now, and it's not great, but it helped me get the home of my dreams, so I'm fine with it - it's way better than living as a guest for months in an inconvenient location, even if you like your parents! The only other idea I have is to take a look at the house and see if there are any cosmetic sorts of things you can do to fix it up that won't cost much but will help improve the curb appeal and initial impressions from buyers. Stuff like paint, new cabinet handles, new light fixtures, etc. The house we bought, the owners put zero effort into any of this stuff, and I was really grateful for it because it's an amazing property but the house was all 90s style, ugly decor and I was able to fix it up immensely without that much effort, just by painting all the walls and trim back to white, replacing the fixtures and the cabinet handles. I feel like we could probably get $50K more for it if we put it back on the market, even though I only put less than $10K into improvements myself (would have been less but I paid for professional painters for the entire hours) Regarding your current situation, I think you just need to look on the brighter side about it. There is nothing you can do to change the commute issue (I mean, get a gas station credit card, use grocery points towards gas, etc and you could make it a little cheaper, but you can't change the distance). Is carpooling with anyone else an option? As for the new baby…. 1 month olds don't need their own bedrooms. I know what you mean about wanting more space (at my parents' house we had a bedroom for us and then my daughter was sleeping in a pack and play in my mom's office), but focus on what's important - most babies in the world don't have their own bedrooms, and middle of the night wake ups are more convenient when you don't have to go far to get to them. Make sure you're not just venting frustration about other things towards stuff that isn't really a big deal.>

What does your realtor say? In a similar situation, my parents were able to talk their realtor into halving her commission so they could do a price cut. It's costing you financially and emotionally to keep it on the market. Don't forget to take that into account when you set the pricing.

If the house is priced right there are buyers for every house at every time of the year. So every monthly mortgage payment and associated carrying cost payment (utility, taxes, management fees) you make on the old house is a price reduction you could have made 30 days earlier to help price the residence correctly. I do not recommend renting out your house for a number of reasons. You have to pay to rent your house, even if you are doing it yourself. Listing and marketing fees, cleaning, repairs, increased insurance, tenant management etc. This will quickly eat away a lot of your time and money. And, based on personal experience, renters have zero interest in helping you show your home. The house cannot be managed for sale with an uninterested party in situ; the house is dirty and cluttered looking even on the best of days, and what if the tenant refuses to let showings happen? And Real Estate God help us all, what if the tenant refuses to leave the property when the home sells or when the lease expires? It's not unheard of and can sink a sale right quick. My advice, do not have renters and work with your agent to come to an agreement on vacant property management to include light staging and home maintenance with snow removal and checking in on the the house for leaks and damage. An unoccupied house can pretty quickly deteriorate. Here are some legitimate marketing tricks that should be in place for every showing: Open all drapes and curtains, turn on every single light in the house including closet lights and the oven light, have the heat or air on so that the house is comfortable, and do not scent the air. People think you are covering up bad smells when there are air fresheners or cookies or whatever smelling up the house. Before your next showing, have the house deep cleaned - the cleaning may not be all that expensive because your house is empty and the cleaning company can blow through it in a couple hours. If any walls need paint touch up, have it done and if you are fully repainting anything, paint it Home Sale Beige. For most Americans, your home sale and home purchase are two of the most financially impactful transaction you will even make, so remember that you and your Realtor are in a business transaction. You do not need to make your Realtor comfortable and you do not need them to be your friend. Tell them what you want and expect from them, and negotiate from that point so that you and the Realtor are in agreement to concessions, open houses, marketing, and showing availability. I would suggest you immediately find out when your current contract with your Realtor expires, and have a plan to re-negotiate at minimum their realtor fee. I would suggest you ask for a 1% concession on their fee. If they won't do it, source another agent either as leverage with your current agent or just go with the next qualified agent who agrees to a reduced commission. Real estate is a cut-throat industry and you should not be afraid to play hardball. For instance, on my last home sale I negotiated a cash rebate of 40% of the 3% sale agent's commission. This is highly irregular because I knew that based on location, comparables and my initial list price my home would have an offer in 2 weeks and close in 45 days from the first list date. This means that the Realtor had very little sunk costs in the sale of my home and their commission was almost "Hey Look, Free Money!" I mention it because it can be done even your current situation and Realtors would rather have a sale and some money in their pocket than continue to market and spend time on a home for sale and have no money in their pocket. While you and your Realtor should be in a professional business relationship where you are pressing them hard to sell your home, your Realtor cannot be afraid to give you the honest truth about your residence's cleanliness, marketability, functional obsolescence, comparable sales, local markets, normal and customary seller concessions. You must then be receptive of their information and advice. Hopefully, you are already in this situation. Your house went a bit "stale" after only a few weeks on the market, unfortunately. It's like this for every residence, not just yours, so you've missed the sweet spot of being the fresh new house on the market. If you take your house off the market, just putting it back on the market doesn't automatically refresh the house's sweet spot because even a Realtor on their first day on the job will look at how many total days a home has been on the market, and unless you can show that you have made improvements to the residence, taking the home on an off the market can have an air of desperation. And if you home is off the market, no one can make an offer on your home! My advise as a real estate manager is to keep your home on the market unless you literally are ripping the roof off to put on a new roof. I have seen too many houses sit around and languish because the seller was afraid to ask the Realtor to reduce the commission, or to spring for some type of sales benefit (staging, concession) out of the Realtor's pocket. I've also seen a lot of really good Realtors want to pull their hair out because the seller is unrealistic as to any number of things, mostly involving price. Trust your Realtor's advice and push your Realtor hard to get your home sold.

Remember,http://ask.metafilter.com/245758/Craigslist#3568571. I suggest apples, they keep for a long time (generally speaking). Or fake fruit.

Take the house off the market. You want to reset the clock. Steel yourself for having to stay at your Mom's until spring. Also, you say you can't afford to sell for less. Is that because you'd otherwise have to come to the table with money, or is it because you want a certain amount of money out of the house? These are very different things. We sold our house at a loss and paid a ton to get out of it. Oh well, easy come, easy go. We're living in an apartment now and we love it. If you need to get a profit out of the house to buy another house, re-frame the question. Take that profit, and use that to bring the price down. you will save on mortgage, you'll get out of your Mom's faster and with two little ones at home, do you REALLY want to do homeowner stuff right now? You may not want to live in a apartment as a permanent thing, but it can really work for a couple of years while you save up for a new house. You have to decide what the actual goal is here. Is it making a profit on the house, or is it getting out of your Mom's house? Because those things might be mutually exclusive. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000MN2TNQ/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/

Can you arrange it that the driveway is plowed and salted immediately after every snowfall? That might take out some of the ouch factor. It's amazing how people can overlook an inconvenience if the inconvenience isn't quite as obvious. (Yeah, the driveway fairies must have kept it clear)

However, it's difficult for me to remain optimistic when the driveway is the thing everyone hates and we are approaching snowy icy season. I feel like there's no chance until spring! Nobody wants to buy a house with a steep drive in snow season. I agree you are unlikely to sell until April. I say this as someone who's parents now live in a house with a steep drive they frequently cannot get up in winter, which they stupidly bought in the summer. You can try knocking 4 - 6 months of mortgage payments off now and seeing if that stimulates viewings or offers, but the driveway issue is such a real, unsolvable issue I don't know it will help. But I think it's like pregnancy: you just have to accept that it's gonna suck and will take forever and you just have to know you'll get through it.