Expert: Lori Frankfort - 12/15/2008

Question
How can we sell our OC home as quickly as possible? Our family needs to move within 4-6 months because of my husband's job transfer.

We own a 40 year old 1800 SQ FT, 4 bd-1.5 bath ranch style house in good (but not great) condition located in a declining neighborhood in an Northern OC city. We paid $375K in 2002, put $80K down and paid equity+interest for just 2 years before a re-fi to an interest-only loan.  

We improved the house by adding: a new roof, new patio roof, Pergo floors throughout, new wall oven, new bathtub. The house has these old but still functional features: an 18 year old AC/furnace, an old grubby stove, pink tile in the one main bathroom, old metal window frames; plus it has a broken sprinkler system in both the front and back yards, leaving the lawn half-dead.

I should add that three houses on our block have been for sale for over 2 years now. However, these houses are smaller than ours and the sellers want 2004 prices for them.

Answer
My advice to you would be not to sell.  The only benefit to selling is to get your equity out, but if you have no equity you may end up selling for less than what you owe.  The fact that you still have work to do on the house, and that other houses have been sitting is bad news.  Can you rent the house for enough to cover your expenses?  That would be your best bet, then wait out the market recovery.

Good luck,
Lori