As you may have read, I am in a new position in a new town. We are trying to get the family to Tulsa, but I won't move them until our house sells back home. Our house has been on the market for about 2 months now and we have had 4 showings, but no interest beyond the 1st visit, although everyone thought it showed well.
The call that killed my day was regarding the house and my living situation. The house was initially listed for $900 more than we paid for it. But yesterday the decision was made to lower the price by $5k. I know this should help sell the house faster, but I am not getting that "feeling", so you can have my house for almost a full 5% below what I paid for it and that doesn't include the upgrades. $3000 in new windows 2 years ago, a new bathroom and a fully redone porch. Not to mention (although I guess I am) all the painting and wallpaper removal that we have done.
This price reduction should make me feel better, but it doesn't. I worked hard to make that house better. For what? To sell if for less than I have in my mortgage and not to count all the hours and improvements we made. It feels (and is) a failure on my part. This move is now digging into my bank accounts.
All of this being said, I can deal with this. But to quote Paul Harvey, "now for the rest of the story".
Combo the first price reduction with a lack of interest in the house and then add another planned price reduction in 2 weeks. This new reduction will take the price down by another $5k. So now I am going to sell my house for $10k less than I paid for it 4 years ago. OUCH! (So if you are reading this and are interested in buying my house, please send me a message, I will work with you on the price before 2 more weeks are up.) Absolute failure on my part, my new career was already a drop in pay (slightly) but now I have no free capital to use for a down payment on a new house, so our dreams of a newer place with a great neighborhood and nice kitchen just went POOF! Dreams can be for suckers anyway (I don't really believe that).
So the last and maybe most painful part is that my company paid apartment time is running out. I have to move out in less than a month and me renting an apartment will dig further into the bank accounts. In fact, my calculations have things looking like this- apartment + food = not coming home to visit my family. My math us as follows, $150 per round trip from Tulsa to home, x 4 if I drive home every weekend, = $600 a month. An apartment will run me at least $600 and that doesn't count food. So we are in the hole even further.
So there it is. My sob story. I think what bothers me at the core is that I was optimistic, even to an uncharacteristic level and I think I used that optimism to sell my wife and son on this transition. Even though I had the best of intentions, I still feel like I failed them. For that, I am sorry.
