Help! Home for sale - update

When Judy and Bill Eaton put their large (4,100 square feet) and beautiful modern ranch on the market, they never dreamed it would languish there for months and months.

The house sat in a desirable neighborhood in Carbondale, Illinois and on a more than an acre of well-landscaped lot.

What they underestimated was just how weak the market had become there.

When we profiled them last September they had already dropped their price from $425,000 to $358,000 and they were planning to take the house off the market around Oct. 15 if they weren't attracting any buyers.

The Eatons wound up waiting until Nov. 1 and have kept it off the market all winter. They plan to relist it starting April 1.That, however, may not happen."Last week," reports Judy, "our neighbor came over and said friends of his were interested in seeing the house. The couple seemed very interested."

The Eatons are making the property even more attractive by replacing the ceramic counters with granite and updating the utility room. When the buyers see the updates it may clinch the deal.

The buyers want to bring friends in to see the house, which Judy interprets as a good sign.

The house certainly shows well and when we first profiled the Eatons they got calls from all over the country from people saying they had seen the story.

"I appreciate the exposure you gave us," says Judy.