Finished Flip, No Traffic - Now What?

[Andrew Taylor]

My wife and I just finished our first flip. We put the house on the market about a month ago and have had almost zero traffic (two showings). Empirically, I know this means it's overpriced, despite an initial listing price that I *thought* was under the market, and two price drops since then.

We've also listed the house for lease but aren't getting any bites there either. Again, I think I've got it listed at or below market rent rates but so far, crickets. The house is in a good area, has been tastefully updated, never flooded, has a pool and sits on a corner lot.

I thought the house was probably worth $515k, but we initially listed at $499k to capture the "below $500k" searchers. Dropped the price to $489k after about two weeks, then stopped again to $479k after two more weeks. I can drop it as low as about $460k before I'm in danger of losing any money on the deal (I've got somewhere between $120k-$170k of equity, depending on actual selling price).

My question is, what now? Should I try to refinance into long-term and lease it out until the market improves? Drop the price again? Wait it out while I continue to make $3k/mo in interest payments? Some other option I'm not seeing? Obviously I'd rather not lose any of my cash investment, because losing sucks and also I don't want the wife to rescind her blessing with respect to my investing - but I also don't want to cut off my nose to spite my face. I'd rather lose a few thousand dollars and chalk it up to a learning experience than lose all of my investment and not be able to try again.