[5-DayForum] Questions to alleviate the Jitters

[Lisa Castro]

We are getting ready to do our 5-Day Sale this weekend (Dec 1 & 2). After
reading the email from Lee, it made me feel less secure about moving
forward. We can't keep the house. We bought another house in town, that is
better suited for our home-based business and to downsize (empty-nesters),
right before the market changed in our area (Portland, OR). The market is
still good compared to other areas (actually almost all the basic stats are
up), but homes over a million dollars aren't moving (even though the market
was hot when we made the decision to move).

We've only had two showings. One in April and one in May - nothing since.
The Realtor says it's comparably priced, and the house and property are
beautiful, but there is now a 5 year inventory for homes over a million
dollars. We very much want to sell our home, but because we spent over
$200,000 to totally replace the siding and covered decks and did some
updating (we had EFIS - synthetic stucco), and we are using a line of credit
to make the payments, we may owe more than a 5-Day Sale could bring.

My biggest hesitation is how to handle the highest bid, if it is less than
we owe. Being objective, if someone bought it for what we owe, they would be
getting a great deal, so we are moving forward in hopes that the 3 Real
Buyers agree.

We've spent about $1,300 on advertising (the Oregonian was $1,000, alone,
for an ad that stands out a little more) and we put "referral ads" (pointing
them to the main ad) in other sections, since our country property is
between four towns. We also advertised in the four towns newspapers (all
with a little photo). Our advertising comes out on Wednesday and goes
through Sunday (in the Oregonian) and the community papers are one or two of
those days, each.

I will be putting it on Craig's List tomorrow (very popular here), but I am
concerned, based on your other responses) that we may get a skewed response
(25 without the 3 real buyers).

After reading the book and following the forum closely, for the last couple
of weeks, I'm pretty certain we are doing everything, by the book. There is
one gray area. Is it okay to leave the listing with the Agent in place,
until Friday evening, when we know we will know whether we are moving
forward, or not? It would be a major pain for my friend/Realtor to have all
the advertising withdrawn online and then have to put it back again, if we
don't get enough responses. Some of the online ads can not be removed
immediately, because they are sites she doesn't have control over.

If we are moving forward with the Saturday and Sunday Inspection, we will
sign papers to cancel the listing and owe nothing to the Realtor, unless we
have her review the contract, or she helps us write it up for a fee. She
wants to do what works best for us. Advise?

Anybody have a template of the rules?

Thanks in advance,
Lisa
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