Sale fell through on a hard to sell home primarily because of items in and condition of basement

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Buyers expect the house to be completely empty, because they have their own junk. The price of building and plumbing supplies is very high right now it would be a good time to sell that collection.

Nobody wants a sunken floor, at all. It would be worth building over it to make the room flat. An extra kitchen only makes sense if the place is large enough to have a mother-in-law wing, which doesn't seem to be the case.
 
Get everything out of the basement, which it seems like you are doing. Why the stud walls in the basement, was it finished at one time and flooded?
No, we are the second owners. The original owners did the studs, I guess they were going to build out the basement.

Of note, not confirmed and means nothing, but a interested party looking at the home did some research and said the lot is the highest point in the entire county. I don't know if accurate, but zero water issues ever, and kids can sled down the back yard when it snows.
 
I hired a broker to sell the home, he is here now. He has two assistants with him, a photographer and a drone operator. Pretty impressed. One drove up in a BMW, next arrived a Mercedes, and the broker in a full size range Rover. I will post later why this is important.
 
I hired a broker to sell the home, he is here now. He has two assistants with him, a photographer and a drone operator. Pretty impressed. One drove up in a BMW, next arrived a Mercedes, and the broker in a full size range Rover. I will post later why this is important.
If a Broker was hired in the first place, he would have advised you to clean the basement to make the property more desirable.. You stated you had dozens of calls on the property. A Broker would have kept a record of said callers-or back up offers.

Quote"multiple chain saws, power washers, dozens of shovels" -so you are transporting this stuff-only to have to transport it again when you gig in Washington state is up.
 
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When we sold a house the inspector found some reasonable problems that we didn't know about - a wonky fireplace fan switch, a questionable thermocouple and a defective ground fault plug. We fixed those. But they also "found" that the insulation in the attic had settled a little, to maybe R35 or R38 from the typical R40. They wanted that brought up to R40. We said absolutely not.

The buyer also wanted the carpets cleaned - reasonable enough. On our last day we were contacted - would we give them $200 instead of cleaning the carpets. We had arranged for the best carpet cleaners in the city (and our long term cleaners) to clean the carpets at a special price. The last thing we wanted to do was back out of that arrangement so we refused.

Then their agent or their lawyer objected to small discrepancies on the property line (the fence location was within tolerance but slightly on the neighbour's property and our boardwalk was built right up to it so it extended 2 or 3" over the property line. The city had inspected the property and provided a formal Compliance Certificate. Any reasonable buyer would have accepted that as meaning compliance. That took a year and $500 in lawyer's fees and $500 in "compensation" to settle. I think the lawyers actually got all of the money.

We were sorry we sold to those people. They have since moved on and the neighbourhood is better for it.

Some buyers are just unreasonable.

My suggestions - paint the basement floor. Remove the 'junk". Replace the insulation above the studs and between the joists with fitted polystyrene foam - it has a nice clean look. Whether to replace the insulation between the studs is a toss up. People may think you've taken the insulation out because of a flood, but if you leave it in they may think you're hiding cracks. Could take dated photos of each wall and put back the insulation. But I'd leave the studs at the least. That has some value and is not a negative.
 
This is what is still left in the basement. Lmk
 

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Might I offer another potential reason - unless this was a cash buyer, mortgage rates have been climbing rapidly this year and the 30-year is now around 6%. I'm surprised you weren't able to sell last year in a seller's market, but buyers are getting picky now. I'm seeing houses stay on market longer, with price drops. Good luck and hope you find a buyer soon. The basement sounds to be much better.
 
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Might I offer another potential reason - unless this was a cash buyer, mortgage rates have been climbing rapidly this year and the 30-year is now around 6%. I'm surprised you weren't able to sell last year in a seller's market, but buyers are getting picky now. I'm seeing houses stay on market longer, with price drops. Good luck and hope you find a buyer soon. The basement sounds to be much better.
The red flag is "I have been trying to sell the property since 2009". Think about that for a moment.
 
Most buyers wants clean uncluttered house unless they are Bitoger. :)

Clean up the basement (remove the clutter) and touch up the paints.
Buyer won't care how valuable things that are there, to them everything is junk.
It should be good to go.
Make it as clean as possible.

I know it is tough when you are not there.
Find somebody you can trust to do the work.
 
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pics and lots of details, but no link to the actual sale
Listing broker was out today with two assistants, a photographer, and a drone operator. He showed me the pics and they look impressive.

I had a tenant in the home until April 30, so unable to put on the open market. I reached out to realtors and offered three percent buyer broker commission, that is how I received the offer. I received an earlier offer but turned it down as the buyer was such a pain in the dupa I sensed the deal would never close.
 
Buyers expect the house to be completely empty, because they have their own junk. The price of building and plumbing supplies is very high right now it would be a good time to sell that collection.

Nobody wants a sunken floor, at all. It would be worth building over it to make the room flat. An extra kitchen only makes sense if the place is large enough to have a mother-in-law wing, which doesn't seem to be the case.
The place does have a mother in law. Complete with separate entrance and walkway if one wants to use it that way.
 
Here are some pics of the home.
 

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This is a pic of what was removed the the basement into the trailer. The pic is a bit misleading as the trailer is not organized, lots of wasted space in the loading of the trailer. Goal was to get things out of the basement in 97 degree weather and a long walk to the trailer, not to have the trailer properly loaded.
 

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This is what is still left in the basement. Lmk
Yeah, too much stuff, should be empty. Only thing that should be left are fixtures that are attached to the house so those shelves would go too unless they're attached to the walls. The standard phrase around here is broom swept condition at closing. It's basically not empty.
 
Oh yeah and VA loans are the worst around here. I've only done a couple in my career. Most people hate them. They're ok for veterans that don't have much money, but their funding fees are worse, if they had a bigger down payment, it's cheaper having a conventional loan.
 
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