To List or Not To List

That is our question right now. We're had our house listed fsbo since November. We had some serious interest right off the bat and thought it was pretty much a done deal. And when that fell through, we still had heavy traffic and lots of interest. It wasn't until after Christmas that things got slow. We average one showing a week and it seems that with warmer weather we are getting more serious buyers.

What is frustrating is that we hear from all agents and interested buyers that the house shows great. We've heard the following phrases repeatedly: "They want to bring their mother/brother/son/daughter back to see it in a few days." "It's in their top four!" "It's a serious contender." And my personal favorite, "I have to sell my house first."

So when an agent calls to tell us that it went well, like they did last night and last week, all the hope I once had is, sadly, not there. In it's place is a sort of resigned understanding that the realtor is trying to keep his/her options open.

Hank and I are talking seriously once more about listing with an agent. We have one in mind and have from the beginning of this process, but thought we would exhaust all options with fsbo (i.e. buying a package that lists your home on realtor.com and assigns you an mls # for 6 months).

It's mid March. We are in our fifth month with Hank in his new job. I've heard from others who have been in this same spot that 5 months is not so bad.

Once we got into February, we began making plans 'just in case' we sold since we wanted our kids to stay in their school through this year. So as far as our children are concerned we have felt it best to leave them where they are and make their big transition over the summer. I just hope that happens for us. For some reason, when I look ahead, and think in terms of months, it doesn't seem like we have a lot of time to make a decision.

As of right now, we are seriously pondering listing. We loose a lot of flexibility with the price then, but it becomes a ton more visible and the work load is lifted off of our shoulders in terms of showing and open houses.