The most important thing is to be on the MLS, which I assume you are since you have an agent. I looked at your website, and think that you need to make some changes. It says that you are willing to paint the purple/yellow bedroom - I would do that now.
I would probably neutralize the orange bathroom, and did you realize that the picture shows a trash container with empty toilet paper rolls and other garbage? That picture needs to be retaken.
Kitchen pictures - In the first picture my eye is drawn to the refrigerator and all the magnets and clutter on top.
In the picture of the kitchen and ding room there is tissue box and food container on the counter. Is that a microwave cart in the dining room? I would move that. As far as the text of this picture I'm not sure how big a selling point vertical blinds are. I like the cabinets, countertops and wall color in the kitchen/dining.
Your backyard looks lovely, nice landscaping!

Thanks for the suggestions! We have not yet painted the purple room because the agent told us to wait on it. He said to offer to paint the room in the buyers color of choice. The original plan was to paint it immediately.

I re-took the kitchen and bathroom pictures. Thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks for the compliments, I did all of the renovations myself. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Updated 25579 Loretta pictures

How do you expect people to find your website? It's perfectly nice, but I don't see how you are going to get any traffic that way.

Also, a quick look at zillow shows a lot of houses for sale in your immediate area and the ones that are selling seem to be for less that $100k. If you REALLY need to sell your house, you most important thing you can do is make sure you are priced aggressively.

Lovely photos!

I would change the term "Foundation with basement" to "Basement," "Basement, unfinished," or something else. Every house has a foundation of some kind, whether it is a basement foundation, slab foundation or stilts.

You have a great deal of color in the rooms, and it works for the most part. I wish you could get a more flattering photo of the orange powder room without the colors flaring.

The photo of the front bay window is nice, but it points out how close you are to the house next door.

Get the microwave out of the dining area and try to photograph the dining area so that the refrigerator doesn't show.

Bill,

I am waiting for it to be indexed by google, however I am also posting it on craigslist and my agent is posting it on his website. Additionally it will be on the flyers that will be in a box connected to our sign in the front yard and I will be putting a sign on the C21 sign that has the website on it.

As for selling the house, we paid $140k for the house, put in ~15k in renovations, and owe just over $120k on the house.... we can absorb some loss, but not a ton. The relocation company makes the realtor give them a price at which they are sure the house will sell at in 120days or less. Both of the realtors that were bidding for our business said to list at 115k and it will probably sell at 105k. Thats pretty much the dead lowest we can afford :(

Greywings,

Thanks for the suggestions, I will change the basement statement immediately. I uploaded a photo of the orange room with less color flare (make sure to refresh your browser when you visit the page so you will see it), is that better?

As far as how close you are to the next house, this is unfortunately a reality with living anywhere in the suburbs near Detroit. If you are expecting something different you are in for a rude awakening lol.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.25579loretta.com

Nice job on color adjusting the powder room. By the way, love the photo of the yard that shows the blades of grass!

Buyers don't care what you can afford to sell at.

The house around the corner at 4546 Orr Ave has been on the market for a month at 95k and hasn't sold. 5290 is up for sale at $89k. The house a block over on Masch is listed at $70k. The house right on your block at 25834 sold for $44k. Across the park, you have several houses that sold for $40k or lower. There are houses on bonning ave that sold for $27k.

Frankly, there are a ton of comparably sized houses that are selling for less than half of your asking price within a mile of your place. You have a perfectly lovely home, but I don't see many homes in your neighborhood actually selling for anything close to what you are hoping for.

Did your agent give you actual comps that support your price? What did he/she say about all the sales that were WAY lower?

Bill,

Both realtors did indeed give us comps. They showed that the most expensive house to sell recently sold at about $100k, with a few in the mid 90's, but they was nowhere near as updated as ours. This house is so well maintained, we take very good care of our possessions. There were, of course, a ton that sold for much lower as short sales and bank owned properties as well.

I realize that buyers don't care what we owe.... but us selling it for less than 105k is the same as us trying to get a square peg to fit in a round hole. It just can't be done. We have a total of 5k in savings so the other 10k that we would pay off to get it down to 105k would be going on a credit card. I have a new job that requires us to move, so we really don't have any more options.

Renting is not a very good option because the rent that people are getting around here for equivalent houses is about $150-200 less than what I currently pay in mortgage and taxes per month. That's not including insurance and the costs of maintaining a rental. Also, house values are expected to drop another 6-9% in this area over the next year, with another possible drop over two years... so it will just keep losing more and more money. Finally, we will not be in the area and thus would have to be long distance landlords... never a good prospect.

We cannot just bail on the house or short sale it because we cannot afford another house right now (and need to be fairly mobile for the next 2 years or so when I may need to be transferred) and will be renting. If our credit gets totaled, we wont even be able to rent a place.

So if you guys have any good ideas on how to get out of this, or good marketing ideas, I am all ears!

Thanks,

Bobby

Your house looks like it is well maintained, as you had suggested. But, I think there are a few things you could do to make it show better. On the front of the house, the supports that hold up the roof on the porch look dated. If they could be switched out for a more modern looking column or support that could help. Same things go with the numbers on the house. They look old, and don't really convey the inside style of the house. Consider switching them out for a more modern looking number set. The storm door on the front porch doesn't look all that inviting. You may want to consider either removing it or replacing it with an all glass door. On the inside of the house, it is too dark. Granted, I prefer that, but most people do not. Consider repainting everything a lighter color. Also, in the pictures, retake them with the blinds and shades open, to show all the light that comes in to the room. Probably the hardest pill to swallow, though, is that you may not sell your house anywhere close to your asking price. Everything I see and read say that Detroit is a ghost town, and there are no jobs. So, you could have the best house in the city, but if there are no jobs no one will buy it.

I'm not trying to be rude or cruel, bobby. You said you REALLY need to sell. If the most expensive house to sell around you has been 100k, the chances of you getting 115k are about zero. Even if you could sucker someone into paying double what other house are selling for, it would be highly unlike that they would be able to get an appraisal that would support financing that much.

To me, unfortunately, it looks like you are underwater in this house. Many people are in your area. That isn't a problem that can be fixed with marketing. Have you talked to your lender about a short sale yet?

Thanks for the advise guys!

stapleface: Good point about the support columns.. I will look into that. The picture is a little old, the mailbox,the address, the front door, and the storm doors have all been updated. I just didn't have another nice photo of the front of the house. I could use one that was taken yesterday, but it looks very dreary with brown grass and clumps of snow around. check it out: http://www.25579loretta.com/images/outside.jpg

Is that better?

Bill, no offense taken. We have looked into short sale, but don't want to have to deal with the severe negative on the credit if we don't have to. We need to have credit if we need to move again in two years. Also, though it is in the fine print, the bank has the ability to make a judgment against you within 5 years mandating that you repay the difference. Some people in real estate feel that in the next couple of years the banks are going to start trying to re-coup their losses by demanding people repay some or all of the difference. This would not be a good situation.

The realtor is confident that the house will appraise for around $100-110k.

"The realtor is confident that the house will appraise for around $100-110k."

Your realtor is telling you what you want to hear so they can get your business. If the comps are all under $100k, then your house is not going to appraise for over $100k. The appraiser is going to toss out the highs and the lows and you'll end up somewhere in the middle.

This really isn't uncommon with some agents. They will tell you whatever you want to hear to get you signed up. Once your house sits for a couple months, they will tell you the market has softened and you should lower your price. You'll tell them you need to sell higher, so they'll recommend lowering just a little. This is referred to as "chasing the market" and usually doesn't work well for the seller.

You said you are working with a relocation company. Have you talked to them about the issue? Is your new company paying for some of the relocation costs? If so, have you talked to them about covering some/all of the shortfall from the sale? There are a ton of people in similar situations, so there might be some options for you there.

I have thought the same about the realtor, but here are my only reasons why I am giving him the benefit of the doubt:
1) Two independent realtors gave me almost the exact same values (both said to list at $115, one said it will sell around $100k the other said it will sell around $105k) in their broker market analysis
2)The realtor has signed an agreement with the relocation company to give a list and sell price that they are confident the house will sell in under 120 days. If it does not sell in that time with the suggested values, they get a negative rating by the relocation company and are no longer a preferred realtor. I hope that this is a good incentive to price it right.

I could be just being naive, but I am hoping for the best.

The company I will be working for unfortunately does not have assistance with short sales. They pay for realtor commissions, closing costs on your new house, and moving expenses.

You say I have some options.... I would love to hear them!

I said you MAY have options - and I didn't say you were going to like them. :)

Your new employer is willing to pay for some moving costs. Presumably, they have x dollars set aside for that. You may be able to negotiate how those dollars are spent. eg you opt for a uhaul instead of movers and they put the difference toward your house. You skip the closing cost support and they give half of that to your housing debt. If you can save them some money and get yourself out of a whole, that could be win-win.

The bottom line is that if you owe more on your house than it is worth, you are in a bad spot. You are just trying to get out without losing your shirt or destroying your credit. If your house doesn't sell and you have to move, then your options are renting it, trying for a short(er) sale, letting it go to foreclosure, or going on a rice and beans diet while paying for a mortgage and rent. Personally, I would be hoping it sells but planning for what happens when it doesn't.

Spacemonkey... you NEED to sell. The alternatives if not are terrible.
I would recommend lowering the price somewhere like $99,000, and taking a cash advance out on a credit card to pay the costs of the sale. Like Bill said, maybe the relo company can use their allocated funds to pay off some of this cost.
Man, you are playing with fire. You HAVE to sell. You need to make it happen, and it is not by being over $15,000 above market value!

LOL. The $20k we are willing to lose to sell the house already INCLUDES putting $12,000 on a credit card. We have pretty much no other sources that we could get money from.

Not sure what we can do. I guess we will see what happens in the next month or two and in the very worst case push for a short sale.