It seems that in February of 2007 I was asked to come over to present a CMA and talk about how wonderful I am to a potential Seller. This particular Seller was in a subdivision I market to all the time and I've actually sold quite a few homes. I may not be "The King" yet but I do pretty well. I went full out. I took lots of pre-listing appointment photos and prepared a nice pre-listing package. I was ready...or so I thought.
The guy in this house had been living in it for decades and it looked like he never got rid of a single piece of paper. There were literally 
paths to walk through to get from one room to the next. It was quite and experience. There were a ton of other challenges as well but, hey, you get the idea. Back in those days, though, homes were still selling pretty quickly in this part of town and for a pretty penny, too. I thought, if we priced it right, someone would come along and snatch it up because they were afraid to miss the gravy train (looking back at this time period is an education in itself. Who knew I was living at the very end of a huge Seller's market?)
The guy didn't do anything, though, an time passed. Fast forward to today. The wife he had been recently separated from in 2007 was making his life miserable in a divorce that was really forcing his hand about selling the house. However, not much has changed about the physical condition of the house. Still wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling stuff.
After smacking him in the face with the fact that values have plummeted close to 50% in this particular subdivion (all real estate is local and as crazy high as prices went they are now going crazy low) I suggested he might really have a "Come to Jesus" talk with his divorce lawyer and a good reverse mortgage specialist. I showed him prices combined with Days on Market and suggested that if there was anyway that he could manage to work out some type of arrangement with the soon to be ex that he'd be better off.
It's kind of a sad story. Who knows if the wife is justified in trying to force a sale? Maybe. Maybe not. All I know, it that sometimes it's better to tell people to hold on and try to ride it out.
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