Shenandoah,
I raise my coffee in salute to your grand efforts and fortitude. And, as you now know, 99% of lease options and lease purchases are nothing more than a rental that more than likely will never go to close.
I sometimes do not like to give out pricing advice, because real estate is soooooo local. But, the advice that I can give to just about anyone trying to sell is this:

If you are getting no showings and no offers, you are way overpriced.
If you are getting a few showings and no offers, you are still overpriced.
If you are getting a lot of showings, and no offers you are close, but still a bit over priced.
If you are getting a lot of showings and at least one offer, you are priced right.

And again, I love your username. Did you know that the Indian translation is "Princess Of The Stars"?

So happy you have gotten out from under the house and can now go forward with your lives.
Kathy G in MI

Glad to hear that your ordeal is over and you could walk away without owing anything.
Will you call yourself "Princess of the Stars" now? Nice name.

Instead of a steak dinner, you could have gotten many months of free accommodation, maybe even D.C. subsidies to stretch out a freebie even further.

(Of course, this observation is from someone who on a sale in the '90s real estate bust paid a further $35k out of pocket to the mortgagee to avoid marring his credit.)

So sorry to hear of your struggle through these hard economic times! Glad you were able to sell plus not lose money!!!
Dh and I sold during the summer of '08; right around the time everything was "going in the tank"!! We lowered our price 2 times, I think, and had we not been in our house for 15 years we probably wouldn't have had that "wiggle" room. I don't know how people are selling today....hopefully there will be a "turn-a-round" one of these days!!
Good Luck!

Glad to hear it worked out!

On to ncrealestateguy's quote...

"If you are getting a lot of showings and at least one offer, you are priced right"

This is where we are right now - feels good that we got a good offer - just trying to get through escrow now, everything is almost finalized - but almost doesn't cut it. Holding breath until closing!

Good luck, its almost over. I never want to go through selling another house. I'm thinking lately, renting is the way to go...

Please post back so we can all celebrate with you!

Jane

Sorry about not posting back. My computer wasn't cooperating -- too many cookies? -- thank you, Bill Gates.

Anyhow. Wow. Didn't know about the 'princess' part. Just have a thing about rivers, and always loved the song.

Interesting follow-up note: there are a lot of unsold properties in our n'hood, no surprise, with more coming on the market all the time. Our house was the first 2-story to be listed under 300K in many years (and the sale price was considerably under...) Our REA tells us that the moment the 'Under Contract' sign went up on our lawn, several listed homes close by dropped into the 290s. Such is the power of comparables. When our neighbors get past hating us (believe me, I understand it... however, most of them still have incomes)I hope this will bring them more traffic. It still is a beautiful community. And I sure did love living by that river...

Shenandoah,
Your nieghbors have no reason to hate you... you sold your home at market value, and not a dime less. In time, they too will realize this.
I know that you probably feel like you had a bout of bad luck, but I can tell you that your "ending" was storybook. I meet people almost everyday, where the ending was met with a much, much worse scenario.
On a side note, I am traveling to West Virginia this weekend to get one more fishing trip in on the Shenandoah before the weather shuts down the fish. Many bald Eagles have returned over the last few years too. If you ever need a get away and would like to spend some time playing on the Shenandoah, let me know... I have a little cabin up there just sitting around.

How tempting! That's one piece of real estate I would NEVER part with. Please hold that generous thought... we may get out from behind the 8-ball yet.

You're right, NCRG, about the 'storybook' part. We haven't dared follow up with our REA in the last 2 weeks because we're afraid when we call she'll say, 'Oh, didn't you hear? They want you to take the house back'...

And now that the dangling sword has been lifted away from our heads and we can breathe, we're having to admit that we were planning to downsize for 4 years, that we were looking for a 'simpler' way of life... and boy, we have found it in our little burg. Living without a mortgage is a beautiful thing. So yeah, I think we did catch some luck with the house, and I don't plan to take it for granted. It helped that we got some good advice...

Happy eagle-watching!