going for it (again)

After last weekend's dismal open house - I think one person stopped by - and pouring over all of the most recent comps and sales in the area, we came to the conclusion that we had to make a very difficult decision. Either we reduce our sale price lower than we ever imagined and even offer the buyer's agent's an incentive or we take our house off the market and wait it out for three years or so. By pulling out in what I am sure will be seen as one of the worst possible times to sell a house, we would be assured of a substantial and true nest egg in a few years time. By desperately trying this last ditch effort to sell, we risked being able to adequately finance this venture for more than a year or so.

Luckily, the answer came fairly quickly to both of us. I had actually cracked open "The Life Organizer" book that my dear friend Rose had sent me recently. I have never been one to read self-help books and probably would not have opened this one either except that I had a few hours to burn during our open house and figured that by the way I had been feeling lately, it could not possibly hurt. And it actually had some fairly inspirational ideas about taking control of your life and relearning how to prioritize the things that were most important without getting so stressed out all of the time (my perpetual state of being these days). And one particular section really stood out when it asked you to answer the question, "what do you NOT want," as a process of elimination to find what you are truly looking for. When I could easily answer, "I do not want to sit in front of a computer for 10 hours every day and be bombarded with email or IM requests every other second. I do not want to fight the traffic in LA anymore. I do not want our daughter to be continually influenced by LA's often warped sense of values that seemed to revolve around constant indulgence and riches."

"Your question is your answer Butterfly."

Hank did not need the self-help book. He just knew the answer instinctively so we called our agent and told her to send us the paperwork. Of course, as soon as we released this energy (I know, I know, I'm getting all in tune with myself all of a sudden), there is a call from our cash couple AND a man who had looked at our house exactly a year ago and could not get it out of his mind.

"Stop the presses Fariba!" And of course she does while we wait for answers from both parties to hopefully make offers so a bidding war can begin. Well okay, just one decent offer and we would be ecstatic (and take it). We are supposed to hear something today, although we are both trying hard not to get our hopes up too high yet. But least we do have a little hope right now which is something we have been lacking for the past few weeks and I am definitely holding on to it.

p.s. it is also interesting to note that we took St. Joe out of our garden last week as we figured that he must have found out that we were not Catholic nuns seeking a new convent and could do nothing to help us.