Sell, dammit!

I swear, our house has never been more beautiful. Every surface is painted, swept, or wiped. The gardens are putting on a show. And yet ... it still hasn't sold.


We listed our four-bedroom, two-bathroom house on May 5, 2017. It has now been on the market for 46 days. Which is about 40 days more than we had hoped.

We truly thought we had priced the house competitively and that its location (across from a lovely park and forest, inside the greenbelt, an 8-minute drive to the new DND headquarters, and close to future LRT stops) would have it snapped up in no time.

We were wrong. We've had two offers come in at about $20,000 less than we had originally hoped to get. We've adjusted our price twice now, and it is currently sitting at $5,000 more than the two offers – just enough wiggle room for negotiations.

"What happened with the two offers?" you may well ask. The first one was too soon for us to consider that precipitous a drop. We countered, but the buyers were evidently at the top of their price range so they didn't counter. They ended up buying a real fixer-upper down the street from us.

The second one was well on its way to being a deal. Two (positive) inspections had been done (pool, vermiculite* testing), and a third was pending, when we learned that the buyer's (preapproved) financing had fallen through. It turned out his (recently) ex-wife had run up a joint credit card so high that it meant he could no longer afford the house. Hell hath no fury ....

His new girlfriend told him to call her when he got his life in order.

I could almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

Just some of the realtor cards that have been left behind. As you can see, some of them
have shown the house multiple times. The agents all have positive feedback, and yet ...

We've gone from feeling fortunate that we can take our time preparing the new house and moving gradually to feeling like we're barely living in our own home.

Meanwhile, we've had houseguests whom we've had to treat rather rudely: no shoes left in the front hall, no toiletries in the bathroom, make your bed every day, no clothes left out. Oh, and you can't be in the house between 6 and 7 pm. So unwelcoming! I feel like the world's worst hostess.

Although we've been told that the house will fetch a better price if it still looks lived in, we've decided that we really can't handle this transitional living. We've booked movers for June 27 and will officially live in our Almonte house as of that date.

Our last resort will be to rent out the house and sort out new financing, but that is not what we really want to do. We want to simplify our lives and reduce our financial burden.

Le sigh.


* Vermiculite can contain asbestos, depending on where it comes from. We were told when we bought the house that it tested negative for asbestos, but we failed to get a copy of the report. The new inspection also tested negative.