Selling a Home in This Economy

We had the house on the market for 6 months, last year when the economy officially tanked. Because we were out of the town, the only choice was to set it up with a Realtor , locally and hope for the best.

At the time we placed the house with the Real Estate, the economy was not looking good and we were more than concerned that we would not be able to sell it. We offered the house for $95,000. A price that is well below the appraised value of the house.

With much fanfare and costs, the Realtor had an open house and listed the property in everything, locally. We were anticipating one or two offers at the very least. When none showed, we knew it may not be the answer we were looking for.

When the bottom fell out of real estate, we were forced to begin the process of making some decisions on what we were willing to do to sell in the current market.

With the house being used primarily as a rental property, the condition was less than perfect. The last tenant managed to cause considerable amounts of damage. With our own blood, sweat and tears, we managed to repaint, do minor repairs and get the house cleaned up.

With some curb appeal done and many new features added, we hoped that even in the bad market, it might be just what someone was looking for at a great price.

After what seemed months, we have still not finalized the sale of our house. With no offers coming our way, we realized that maybe we should consider renting it yet again so we could recoup some of the loss we were taking on a vacant house.

We decided to keep it on the market but with the advice from the Real Estate Agent, we decided to put it up for lease as well. We also decided to offer it as a "Rent to own" property too.

We decided we would handle the rental portion of the deal and let the Realtor continue to try and sell it. With a strict credit guideline and thorough reference check, we have rented the house for now. It has proved to be a valuable option for us.

The people we have rented to, have decided to think about buying the house. They have also done much work to the house. We chose to offer them a discounted rent in exchange for doing the remainder of repairs and improvements that were needed.

We still have the house listed for now. If the people renting decide they want to buy the house, it was worth the effort. If they don't, repairs that we couldn't spend time doing will be completed and will increase the chances of selling it at a future date. Either way, we don't lose any more money in dealing with it for now.

In the current economy, finding creative ways to deal with real estate has become very important. If you can't sell for the time being, maybe renting is a good option for you.