Housing Report May 5th

So said Carol this morning, as we wait to see how this house thing plays out. It's been a roller coaster ride for us all, but especially her, as every new development seems to bring new worry. I mean, she's a fundamentally balanced person, but it's stressful for sure.

In response, I've been trying a new approach which is to be like a farmer about this: We've tilled the soil, planted the crop and now all we can do is see what the weather brings. I've had some mixed success with this approach but it's all I got.

The latest news on Tuesday was that a house down the street also went on the market same day as our; a highly renovated place that looks really nice in the photos. They are asking $749k for it, which Carol took as bad news for us. It looked like a much nicer place and would put a ceiling on what we could get. My view was that it was good news, as it set a higher benchmark for prices on the street. And the beautiful decor aside, I know that house and it's not that great. Thinner than ours, at the bottom of the street on not such stable ground, and only so-so curb appeal...

So, meh. Who can say? Let's see what the weather brings.

It was made worse that on the day our listing went up there was no IMMEDIATE response, and Carol started crunching numbers which showed that if we only got our asking price or a little more, by the time we'd paid off all the fees and taxes, we could maybe afford to renovate a regular coffee up to a latte in the new place. Eek.

I said that even if that were the case, we'd still be in a much bigger house -- albeit less attractive --  but anyway we still had each other and that's all that matters...

A bit quiet on the response. Heh.

I have to say, even I went to bed feeling a bit stressed about the whole thing. I love our current place and location, and although I know I'll be happy at the new place, I wondered what I'd agreed to with this whole "new house reno'd with the profits" plan that we took on with so little research.

Then two things happened: On Wednesday at the agents' open house at our place, they had all seen the "other" house, and agreed that it had some big problems around settling foundations etc. They seemed to think ours was the better property overall. So that brought a little sunshine. Then the requests for showings started... and haven't stopped. We have a bowl absolutely full of real estate agent cards, and more bookings today. Hooray, still shining.

So all good, although will it translate into a good price? Who can say? The cute house across the street had a ton of people too last week, but we haven't seen a Sold sign go up yet. 

Me, I'm just watching the sky dispassionately, chewing on a straw and...

Carol has asked me to stop with the farmer thing already.