Heya,

I have a question to whom ever can give advice! :huggie:

We bought a centex home 2years ago brand new built from ground up, it is our first home and we didn't really know what we needed/wanted all we knew was it was bigger than any apartment we have ever had.

Well now 2 years later we are well settled into our home the kids are older and we are crowded...My hubby HATES our 1 car garage and it really IS packed full of our stuff...the kids complain about the size of their bedrooms both will only hold a twin size bed with dresser and desk. They are older and want full size beds now..and they have gone from the toy box to computers gutiars etc this all takes room they dont have in their lil shoe box rooms lol

When we bought the house I had it in my head that the 4th Bedroom could double as a Computer/sewing room...But no not with 4 computers and 3 sewing machines and emb. machine and a serger...theres no room at all in there!

We want to move into a bigger home, but we dont know anything about selling a home getting a home ready to sell, how much will this cost? Can we live in the home until it's sold? I mean we know nothing!

Does anyone have any advice for us?

We got our home on a arm 4.99 intrest 30 year loan.

we have lived here 2 years in Oct.

its a 4 br 2 bath home in a neighborhood with a HOA

I dont know what eles ya need to know to be able to help but I do need help LOL

We dont have to move ASAP but we do want to move...

Nana~

Nana...

Where do you live? I can put you in touch with a good realtor who will do all the work for you. I used to work for Coldwell Banker. They are worldwide.

And yes, you live in your home until it sells. You need to start looking for a new place now, however, unless you want to live in an apartment until you find a house.

The realtor will do a custom analysis of your neighborhood and suggest a selling price. Their fee is usually 6% of the sales price, but if you use the same agent to list your old house and sell you a new one, you can negotiate a better deal - at least down to 5%.

PM me with your address if you want and I will see what I can do for you.

You may want to pm Princess-N-thePea - Jenna just sold her home (I think?).

Spring time she started a thread about cleaning the stains out of her sink... remember?

Yes, you can live in your home until its sold. Sometimes you can work out a deal with the buys where you pay the note(s) - like renting it - until you find someting else.

BUT - most people expect the keys to their new home at the closing table.

My advice is to start decluttering NOW. Potential buyers like to see lots of baseboards so they can imagine THEIR junk in there. Clean closets, pantry's, patio, garage area. Clean clean clean! This is a BIG seller. And the color of your walls is another factor to consider.

Try reading Jenna's thread... lots of good discussion in it.

Good luck!

What is Jenna's therad called?

They told my daughter to rent a storage shed, and remove as much as possible from the home. No family pictures on the walls, only nice bare basics! They had done a faux finish on the LR walls, and the realtor wanted them painted white again. And she had little bags of spices she wanted my DD to simmer in a crock pot when the house was being shown!!! Closets should be organized, and not packed full. Linen closets or cupboards the same way. No frilly shower curtains or window treatments. They had a list a mile long of do's and dont's. In the end....it sold as is the day after they listed it, for full asking price, cash money!!! So, I think it mainly depends on where you live, neighborhood wise. If houses sell there, yours should be no problem. And the more the houses around you sell for, the more yours will be worth! Go looking at houses now, and pay attention to what details you notice, and you can use that info to help you prepare yours maybe.....Good Luck!!!

Kat

Okay, I do see a few houses up for sale and lease to own in our hood, but heres the deal I didn't think it was a good idea to see yet because they (Centex) is still building in our neighborhood...and the prices have gone up too, the only good thing I see is that someone who is looking to move NOW may want our house otherwise why buy used when you can get new?

Also we do not have good credit not horrid either but when we bought our house all our CC were empty and now they are full lol. not behind just full.

Ya hubby and I talked about having to re paint the walls, we thought we would empty the house and pay the centex guys to come paint it basic white again.

When you are ready to sell:

1) Get a good, recommended realtor.

2) Rent a storage shed and declutter your house (makes it look larger)

3) Clean house thoroughly. Keep picked up while you are showing.

4) Pay attention to landscaping (mow, weedeat, plant flowers). When folks drive by, they'll WANT to see the inside of your home.

5) When it comes time to buy, get a FIXED interest rate (15, 20 or 30 years). Interest rates are still low, but will be/are rising. Lock in while you can.

Good luck with everything. Soon, you'll be spreading out!!!! Shawn

I KNOW, I am scared to see what interest rate we would get! Like I said we had 4.99 now and ALOT of people tell us that is super great!

centex texas

number 11 in Austin Village of elm creek is where my house is now,

I like a home style in number 6 Edinburgh Gardens, or I would stay here in elm creek we just need a bigger home.

Have you ever heard of maybe centex working w/ us?

Nana~

FYI - You may wish to wait until your 2 year mark in October before you sell. Otherwise, you'll have to pay high taxes on any equity (capital gains) you make from the sale of your current home.

If you wait, Internal Revenue Code 121 allows for the following once you've lived in your principal residence for at least 2 years (but not longer than 5):

Single owner - $250,000 tax exemption

Married couple filing joint tax return - $500,000 tax exemption

The link below may help explain further.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sec_26_00000121----000-.html

4.99% is a great rate.

Please check out the link below for current mortgage rates.

Keep in mind that these reflect the mortgage rates for buyers with GREAT credit scores.

http://www.bankrate.com/blm/

Thats good info.! We will be here 2 years on Oct 28th 2006.

I will also talk to my across the street friend/ neighbor. They JUST put their home up for sale yesterday! They are moving so she can go back to collage.

I will ask her about how they are doing it

I so much appreaciate all the input because I have no idea what I'm doing!

Nana~

You may also wish to look into buyowner.com. You pay no real estate commission fees to sell the house. They do charge fees to list your home on their website, post pictures, etc. but it's far less than what you'd pay in commission fees to a real estate agent.

Pricing your home:

If you're unsure as to the price you should ask for your home, contact a local appraisal company and inquire about their fee for appraising your home. Tell them that you're looking to refinance and they'll pull comparable homes in the area and provide you with an appraisal price. This will get you the most for your home.

If you don't want to go the buyowner.com way, you could try to do it on your own by putting an ad in the local paper, purchasing "For Sale By Owner" signs and indicate that you're having an open house on a particular weekend/weekends. If, after a few open houses, you don't get any offers, you could then list it with a real estate agent.

Find a good realtor. Talk to friends and coworkers that have sold. Ask them what they think they did right and what they wish they had known. Interview more than one realtor. Ask a lot of questions. The first realtor will give you information even if you don't ask any questions. Now you have some information to ask the second one to see what other options there are. And so on.

The idea of taking out most of the knick knacks and collections is so a potential buyer can visualize what THEY would do with it. I like seeing some personal stuff around, but the most important thing to me is that it is clean and clutter-free to give the illusion of space. Really hard with kids, but do the best you can in their rooms. Make the beds everyday. Never ever leave the house messy.

We sold a house last year, and first thing we did was pack up a lot stuff and move it to an off-site storage unit. You also want the garage to be as clean as possible. Unless your walls really need painting, I wouldn't think it would be terribly important as long as they are attractive.

And, yes, you can live in the house while you are trying to sell, but start looking, too. Get yourselves pre-approved for a loan for a new house. You can make an offer on one before you have sold your existing house. It's call contingency. That is, the offer is contingent upon the sale of your house. This all depends on the housing market in your area. Find yourself a good agent, and they can help you through the process.

I've done this a number of times and it is a hassle. You can hire an agent, but the hardest is keeping is show ready all the time. Sometimes an agent will make an appointment for the next day or so, but sometimes they ask if they can be there in an hour.

Best of luck to you.

Go to a morgage broker or your lending company to find out what you qualify for in a new home. It is better to know up front if the loaded credit cards are going to cost you in higher interest rates on your mortgage. It will also let you know how much of a house you can get. Most realtors don't want to show houses to unqualified buyers and you can make better deals when you are pre qualified.

I agree about decluttering the house. When you are competing with new houses on the market you have to make yours look bigger. It must give the appearance of having plenty of room.

Good luck

I'm part of an interior design "club", and many of the other ladies work as stagers. Don't necessarily run out and paint your walls white. Paint is paint, and as much as there's someone who might think, "Eww, I don't like red..." there's someone else who might think, "This red looks fantastic, I never would have thought of it" or "I wanted a red kitchen, and now I don't have to paint it myself."

My master bedroom is a caramel color, so is master bath. Living room, kitchen, and master hallway (will be - next week!) sage greens. Guest bedrooms are warm creams. Guest bath is a warm terra cotta color. Family room is darker version of the caramel color. Family room bath is lighter version. And oh yeah, I *hate* white ceilings so all of my ceilings are done in the wall color, too. All of this, done within the last year, and we plan to sell in about 3 years. And I'm not repainting a thing. WORST case scenario and you find that wall colors are a deterrent, you can offer a painting allowance. But for the most part, at least in my area, people are able to see through the existing color (and local realtor friends agree).

What matters most, IMO, is to make your house into a "show" house. Meticulously clean, fresh flowers, "baking" scents, pressed towels, decor decor decor. Dressed to the "T", but appearing utterly unlived in.

Def. do check with local agents though. This is true for *my* area, where the demographic "goes with" anti-white walls... doesn't necessarily mean a thing where you live.

If I knew then what I know now.....

We put our house on the market April. Got a buyer (or so we thought) and was to close at end of June. On June 20th our realtor (very inexperienced but we didn't know that at the time) told us the buyers wanted to close on June 23rd. We asked him if we could "rent" for another month since we were not ready to move out. He said the new buyers wanted to move in the day of closing. So we finished packing and was prepared to leave on the 23rd. We had recently purchased land in SC and were going to purchase a double-wide to live in while we built our home. OF course, all was contingent on the sell of our home. Anyway, title company told us that buyers were not qualifed after all. Something our realtor did not check into because he was too green! After 3 extensions we have cancelled contract. We borrowed a camper to live in on our land in SC because couldn't afford anything until sell of house. We just now got running Water, sewer and electricity.

House is back on market and will sell, I am sure of it. But this waiting game is a killer. Penniless and no health insurance...but by the grace of God we are happy. We have our health, I have this website for support that I just found.

My experience: we put everything "personal" in storage while showing the house. Our rooms were small too so we took most all furniture out so rooms would look larger. Also, opened most windows for daylight.

my home, and virtual tour:

http://keyes.com/search/properties/residential/results.aspx?sCode=SzAW97tkmH&waited=1&currentPage=1&sortBy=11&Size=10

We made sure yard was very clean and always put out fresh flowers on showings. Also, I made Cookies before showing so house smelled, "homey"

When showing was scheduled, I put air condition down so house was cool and turned on ALL lights and opened blinds, curtains in ALL rooms. Just make sure all storage items, personal belongs, etc are gone from house. You will see in this virtual tour we had most all items removed.

AND...one more thing, my husband slipped and fell and tiles came up (you don't see new tiles in this picture) so we had to put all new tiles in house, of course this was done after the price of the house was advertiseed!!!

Good luck, I could write a book on what not to do. Also, if we sell before 2/07 (God willing) we will have to pay a penalty on our refinanced loan becuase it will have been less than 3 years since loan begin date.

Hope some of this helped.

Taterbugs!