All in

Whether we sell our place or not, we have to take ownership of the new house on April 1st. That's in less than three months, D-day minus 85.

We're finding ourselves in a situation we (perhaps naively) never imagined could have happened when we decided to trade up back in August: a few weeks away from having two houses to support.

What's wrong with your house?, you might be asking yourself right now. And honestly, we wished we knew. It does have many flaws, both some we expected (the damn gigantic old, unapealing concrete hole swimming pool, the fact that our driveway is only large enough for one car (but long enough for 2)), as well as tons that we never saw coming (the furnace is old (but it works perfectly!), the chimney is not in its best form (but we got it inspected and we're making fires all the time!) the basement two storage rooms are not great (do they have to be staged? They're storage rooms! And there are two of them!), some windows are original (but we changed all the main ones, and the other ones are reliable aluminim, not say, wood that can rot!), the AC doesn't work (touché)... At the beginning, we thought our house still had positive features to offset that (three good-sized upstairs bedrooms, gorgeous hardwood floors, two fireplaces, an exposed brick wall, renovated and functional bathrooms, a nice "vibe", etc.), but apparently, no. Every single improvement we've done (we've worked hard and spent about 8K, not to mention the expensive storage unit we rent out) that we thought would be a plus actually turns out to be more of a neutral, underwhelming thing for buyers.

Even though some (maybe a quarter to a third?) of the people who came probably shouldn't have in the first place -the showing was booked by their agent as a "filler" when it didn't correspond to their needs, after 31 quite disruptive and time-consuming showings and four or five coming-really-close anticlimaxes, we've lost our perspective completely. We don't know anymore if we have a good offer, we don't know anymore whether our taste is worth anything, we don't know what to expect, we don't know what to believe. We're just completely lost.

The pictures on our listing were taken by a great photographer (hired by our agent), and while this most likely brings showings, it's probably a fact that it looks bigger and more interesting than the actual property turns out to be. So maybe it's part of the problem: high hopes, followed by inevitable disappointment? One thing is for sure though: something about our house is off-putting to buyers. And after over four months, some people certainly view it as stale already.

As a comparison, we are priced pretty much the same as things like that (actual current listings in our town. I swear that ALL the photos from that first listing are this mind-blowingly awful and out-of-focus. Also, the people from the second listing have stolen my parents' kitchen stools from the 70s! And, that master bedroom there? Whoa. Someone sure did not get the memo about depersonalizing, decluttering and staging...)

Up until May, all the houses in our neighbourhood sold really quickly and easily, regardless of their state. But since, it's been a standstill. Only two houses have sold since we put ours on the market: one which was significantly underpriced (owned by a panicked old lady who was moving into a retirement facility), and the other which we're pretty sure was some kind of an "arranged" thing (the agent put up the sold sign at the same time as the for sale sign). That's the only reassuring point, I guess: we're not alone in this situation. We still, I think, compare favorably to our competition. But nothing is moving.

In terms of asking price, we've lowered ours by 10K and are lower than everything else around. One of our neighbours has also been trying to sell since the summer. His house is a little bigger and nicer than ours, but at the same time, doesn't have a garage or a finished basement. It's 50K more expensive. The other two closest ones are exactly comparable to ours, and they're both 30K higher. But these don't sell, you might point out. And you're right, but we still thought that this would reflect favorably on our house.

At this point, I'm really eager to cut down another 10K and get.it.over.with. But M, and our agent, and my mom (who was once an agent), all tell me that for now we should keep a prudent stance. OK so even if we move without selling, it means no peace of mind whatsoever and a lot of financial stretching, but then, quite a number of months would have to pass before we've spent 10K maintaining this house post-move.

So these next few weeks are really crucial for us, and the only reason why we've presented our offer for the new house with an 8-month lag: we knew that January, February and March are the busiest months for the real estate market here, totalling about 70% of all transactions for the whole year. It all comes down to this: we are now literally, in pokerspeak, all in. We've been holding on to the hope that from this week on, something will magically change. Maybe not necessarily that we're going to have a lot more showings, because we've always had them, but that the seriousness, readiness and mindset of the buyers will be different.

That our much awaited buyers, people who are aware of the house's less than great sides but are still focused on its positives ones, will walk in, and see themselves living there. That they will think it's still a good value, and will be ready to plunge.

That we'll finally be able to put our minds to rest.