As some of you know, I relocated to New Mexico in April, leaving temporarily my familly in our NJ home that we are trying to sell. We bought it for $505k in 2007,with $180k down payment, thanks to the excellent sale of my previous home. We first listed it for $465k, got few showings and only one low ball offer of $375k. Then lowered it to $449k, still a few showings, no offers, then to $435k, same story.
We have come to the sad reality that if we ever wan to sell and move on with our life, it will have to be in the low $400s...the real estate market is really that bad. That is leaving $100k of home equity on the table, thanks to all the foreclosures and irresponsible lenders and borrowers who crashed the market.
To be honest, we probably over gained on the previous home, and this was just paper money, but it still sucks. The alternative would be to rent, but then we cannot buy another home, and have to deal with all the hassle of being landlords.
I wonder what the braintrust would do in my position...Take the loss and move on, try to sell for a year, rent...In the mean time, we live 2000 miles away and that is not healthy at all. We love
this house and it hurts having to give it away,
but losing the job and being unemployed would have been worse, so...I just hope we still walk away with $80-90k.