Florida Residency

So my Mom spent 3 months in Florida last year and really, really loved it.  The weather was nice so she didn't have to deal with the snow and cold, and it got her out of that house where she had to deal with memories of my Dad and where she'd go days and days without seeing anyone else.  In Florida, she saw Dean or Carol every single day and there were always things going on.  Going back this year was an easy decision, but then Dean found a place for sale in that same gated park where she stayed last year.  It's smaller, but the same general lay-out, furnished, and a really good deal -- so she bought it!  We're going down to Florida at the end of September for a week to give her a chance to see the place she bought and make plans for decorating or whatever.

In August, we finally got the house in Rice Lake completely cleaned up and ready for sale, and it went on the market.  While we were in Alaska, I was communicating with the realtor and we decided that it was priced too high for the market (side note:  we had told him he was pricing it to high to begin with, but he wanted to try for the high sale).  Anyway, we got the price down to a more affordable range for young couples and she has had a little interest since then.  Now, this week, there was an offer on the house.

This is a really bad economy and depressed market.  In this instance, we have a potential buyer who goes around snapping up properties for considerably less than they're worth and renting them out.  When the market turns, he'll probably sell some of them.  Anyway, he offered Mom $20,000 less than the listing price on the house.  She wants to sell the house, but no one wants to lose that much money.  So, she countered with a price right in the middle (which is still $10,000 less than the listing) and they had wanted her out by the end of the month, but the counter-offer gives the middle of next month as the vacate date.  They have 'til Thursday to accept or decline.  Mom is really torn because she doesn't want to have an empty house sitting in Wisconsin where she'd have to keep up the utilities, insurance, etc while she's gone, but selling too low isn't a good option either.  Well, we'll see.

The next step, then, will be to figure out when we can get her to Florida for the winter and how that will be done.  Originally, we would have planned to just throw her things in the van and go.  Now, we might have to factor in getting a truck or trailer to take her things to Florida.  That would be a good problem to have!