I realize that the housing market is in the toilet these days. But unfortunatly people need to move, whether it’s for a larger home for their family or due to a job transfer.
The market is so bad that our condo, which is currently on the market, is selling for $100,000 LESS then what we could have sold it for several years ago (that is no exaggeration). In fact, if we didn’t refinance 8 years ago and still had the original mortgage back when the housing market was at an all time high we could have profited closer to $175,000 on the sale of this place. Of course it was also expensive to buy houses back then too. Everything was at a premium price.
We regret not putting our condo on the market years ago. We made the decision to do it now because our kids are getting older and our one bedroom condo is not big enough for our family. It never has been. I guess we were just too scared to take the plunge and sell.
Our place has been on the market for a month now. We’ve had ONE person come over and see the place last weekend. That’s it. Another person was going to come over during the week but we were not home (we do not have a lock box on our place). As far as selling our condo is concerned we’re losing hope quickly.
We have been activley looking at houses to buy in the location we want to move to (upstate). We know we cannot make an offer on a place until our condo is under contract. We’re looking to see what is available to us in our price range. Not only that, if we find 4 or 5 possible contenders that we like, and someone does buy our condo, at least we’ve done some of the leg work and know that there are a few houses we’d be interested in buying. In this market I’m sure 1-2 of them will most likely still be available.
We’re having a hard time with our realtor. I won’t go into all the nitty gritty details but the big issue is our pets. We have a dog and five cats. Because of this we cannot have a lock box on our condo. Our dog would freak out if strangers walked into our home and no one would want to look at our place with a barking dog. So we agreed with our realtor that he would give us a two hour notice when he wants to bring someone over. That way we can tidy up and take the dog out of the house.
Last weekend we were upstate and he called to tell us that someone wanted to come over and look at our place, but there was no way we’d get home in two hours to get our dog. Our realtor got VERY nasty with me and said “This is why you need a lock box!”.
Another issue our realtor has is our cats. He doesn’t want them to be seen at all. He wants us to put them in crates and put them in the basement. Fine and dandy except we have five cats and we’d need five crates. Not only that the condo board would not be happy about that, nor would our cats. Our oldest cat couldn’t handle that.
We do have a dog and five cats, however my home is totally clean. We cleaned it from top to bottom (scrubbed everything and cleaned the carpets twice). You cannot smell pets in our home. We’ve asked people who have come into our home – including the realtor – if you can smell that we have cats or a dog. Everyone says “no”.
We hide the toys and beds. The ONLY thing visible is the litter box, but, the litter box is a piece of furniture so that it doesn’t stand out too much. It looks exactly like this (below).
So our place doesn’t smell like our pets and there is very little visual evidence of pets in our home. There is just one problem – the cats themselves.
Two of our cats (my boys) are terrified of strangers and will hide and will not come out of hiding until the coast is clear. One of my girls usually hides too but she’s been getting a bit brave lately and will come out of hiding after a little while. I guess she wants to make sure the stranger is OK.
My other two girls are my concern. Kitty is very friendly and will follow anyone around including repair men and delivery men. Our youngest, Bella, follows people around out of curiosity.
All of my cats are very lovey-dovey (except to the vet 
). Bella however has hissed and growled at people before. NOT in our home but if we’re holding her in the hallway outside of our condo and someone approaches her she will hiss and growl. Not because she’s mean but more so because she’s scared. We’re hoping she doesn’t do that when people come over and they try and approach her.
One of our neighbors who has never been inside our condo before is going to come over and walk around our condo while we go outside with our dog to see what the cats do (Do they follow her? Do they hide from her?). Plus we’re going to have her look at our place objectively and see if she sees any other evidence of pets and if there is a smell. She’s been to our front door before and said she’s never smelled anything.
My questions to my readers is… If you were looking at a place to buy would you be turned off if the house had cats that followed you around? Would you not want to look at a home that pets in it, no matter how clean and fresh smelling it was? If you saw a litter box that was clean and didn’t smell in a home you were looking at, would you not want to consider the house or would you just over look it knowing that people do live there and people have pets?
If you have sold your home and you have multiple pets, what did you do with them? Did you leave them home? Did you crate them?
We cannot physically remove all of the pets. We have place to put them or no neighbor we can bring them to. The condo board won’t allow us to keep the cats in crates in the basement. Our balcony is in direct sunlight which would be deadly for them. We don’t know what else we can do.
We’ve looked at several houses so far. One house had a cat and there was kitty litter everywhere and canned food in a bowl (you know how canned food smells). We looked at another house that had a small dog crate in the living room (no dog) and dog toys scattered about. None of this bothered us. We focus on the “bones” of the house, such as the structure and things like no cracks in the ceilings, windows with no drafts and stuff like that. Decor, pets and paint colors are not a huge issue with us. We can paint and decorate it with our own stuff. We also know that people live in these homes and they have pets. What is the big deal?
When you buy a home don’t you usually scrub it from top to bottom too? I’ve only bought our condo that we currently live in. Before we moved in me, my husband, my mother and my mother in law scrubbed every nook and cranny before we officially moved in. So one would assume who ever bought our place would do the same thing? And since our home is already very clean – including the fact that we have pets – should SEEING my pets really matter that much? There are no stains on the carpet. There are no scratches on things. I mean, you can’t get any cleaner.
I would appreciate any “.02 cents” you might have on buying a home that has pets and trying to sell a home with multiple pets. This is all very stressful and getting me very down. 
Does anyone want to buy a condo in the suburbs of New York City? LOL
Kimberly
About Kimberly
I had Avery similar experience 2 years ago. I work for the National Park Service so we move every couple of years. Three dogs and a down market made it very trying.
I personally would not be put off by your cats if there were no odors or damages. Realtors ( my mother happens to be one) tend to get caught up in this perfect marketing scenario. Your realtor needs to get over it. You are a real person with a real life selling your home in the real world. Remember that in the end the realtor works for you.
Sorry about the typo above, sent from my iPhone.
In short, yes, do as your realtor suggests and crate the cats. I understand that this is a pain, but remember it’s not a sellers market at all! So you must do anything AND everything to ensure that you are presenting ideal conditions each and every time you have a showing. And also remember that realtors make money on commissions, thus they know, really know, what buyers are looking for and what may turn them off. Follow the realtors advice. They give that kind of advice because their livelihood depends on the sale.
I’ve just been through selling our old home and buying a new one. The process was unbelievably painful. We lost about $75K in equity due to the housing balloon pop. But the upside, is that the place we bought probably would have been $150K higher in cost 5 years ago. Thankfully, I never pulled any equity when we refied the old place 5 years ago, so we still had a small profit on the sale. But 75K was a tough cookie to swallow indeed. But all I can do is look forward, and be happy with the GREAT new house we got.
Good luck!
We tried to sell our house for three months. Taking a temporaary vacation from selling. The stress drove me up a wall. We have two cockatiels. When we got notice that viewers were coming, we told them “hurry, hurry” and they got in their individual cages. Their cages were in one of the smaller bedrooms.
When we were looking for a house to buy, there was one with a dog loose and another one with a cat loose. We likes being able to pet them and it took some of the stress out of looking. Neither place smelled. We did see a goregous house that stank of cigarettes. We both have asthma and know that it would be too much of a challenge to get rid of the stink.
We bought out current house for $134,500 and went we put in on the market we had to reduce the price twice. Before we reduced it, we had only four people view it. The first time we reduced it , we had twenty come to see it, then nothing, The second time we reduced it, we had droves of people. Four offers but the one that we chose said after the inspection that he wanted a new roof! We had no leaks why I thought. I called our insurance company. They inspected it found one loose shingle and said our roof was in very good shape. But the buyer srill wanted a new roof!
That was the final straw, here we are selling below what we bought it for. We had re-painted the entire inside, updated the fixtures, replaced the carpeting with a beautiful laminate, replaced the dishwasher and did some other improvements and this guy still wanted a new roof after he had a copy of the report saying that it was still good. I had so many sessions of crying during those three months!
I think if you only got one person to view, people are passing it up from the price. I would go ahead and buy some crates for the cats who are as outgoing and let the others roam. If I had that call, I would have had the realtor ask if they could come tomorrow. We had several times when I was so shooken up that we ask for a new date. The viewers complied and that was it.
I think the housing market is not in the toilet, it is in the sewer!
As someone who has had many pets, and moved quite a few times, I understand your frustration. You must remember, though, a lot of people do not like pets, or they have allergies, and don’t like going into homes that have pets, seen or unseen. My advice is to make yourself available any time, day or night, for a showing. Have someone make a large, collapsable crate (a few 1 x 2′s and some chicken wire or screening) that fits into your car so you can load the kitties and pooch at a moments notice and be ready to spend an hour or two with them in your car. A little inconvenience will certainly be worth it to sell your house. Also, if that realtor keeps giving you grief, get a new one! In the current economy, a month on the market isn’ long at all. I know of some homes that have been for sale for 6 or 8 months! Wishing you lots of luck.
We sold our first home in less than 36 hours a couple of years ago. We took our dog with us for the 6 different showings during that time period because we were advised that the barking was a big turn-off. I also poured some bleach down all the drains in the house before each showing and burned some apple pie candles. Gave off the essence of clean and homey
Good luck!
I completely empathize with your situation. I really do. However, you absolutely must remove your pets. I want to point out that I agree with your side, but since you’re trying to sell for the highest dollar possible, remove all the pets. Basically, you must do everything possible to accommodate buyers…even overly ‘sensitive’ ones. A good rule, an especially good one in this economy, is do as much as you can…and then do much much more. Strip the home down to the bare ‘staged’ look. Remove almost all of ‘you’ from each room. No personal items out. Nothing that tells any prospective buyer ANYTHING about you. It might seem extreme, but in this market, you need to do everything. You don’t want anyone thinking about you in your home. You want them seeing them in your home.
I have to say that if your Realtor gets to nasty get rid of them they work for you and will be making money off of you and if you don’t get along 100% it’s time for a new Realtor!
There is no reason for them to make comments……
We just built our home 6 years ago and we had just got two baby Pugs and every time we were going to show the home we lived in I would crate them up and go off for a ride for the 30 minutes or so and then go back..Lucky for me our home sold in 1 week but the several times I had to crate them and go off for a ride was a pain!
There were signs that we had pets they just never saw them also like you I’m a clean freak so my house is always company ready!
Try not to stress your place will sell when the right person finally sees it:)
I hate to say though that can be a few months are even longer you just never know!
Have you had your condo appraised? That should give you a good figure as to what it can be sold for. Have similar condos sold recently in your complex? Your realtor doesn’t make money until your home is sold and closed so they should try very hard for you. If not, pick a new realtor. If you can, price your condo at just under the appraised value and it should sell quicker. We have bought and sold many homes for our family over the years and we also sold real estate a number of years ago.The pets are a challenge. I don’t know what to suggest for them. Best wishes!