How do you sell a historic house/business? - Posted by IL Investor

Real Estate Investing Retail
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Posted by michaela-CA on June 23, 2007 at 06:33:16:

Put flyers in different antique stores around town.

Most cities have little magazines for all the antique
shows in the area. Put an ad in there.

Create a website with many pictures through godadedy.com. very easy and inexpensive. Make it an
easy name like www.historic…com that will catch the attention of the right buyer.

Is there a local antique show? Get a booth and display pictures.

Offer a finder’s fee to the antique store owners , who refer a buyer to you, who buys

On’Open house’ day, drive to where other historic homes are open that day and put flyers under the windshield wipers of cars in front of htat house.

Are there historic neighborhoods in your city? Put flyers up in all the little stores and restaurants in that area.

Give flyers to the real estate agents specializing in those historic parts of town, promising them 4% commission, if they bring a buyer.

Don’t let the prices of new houses deter you. Historic home buyers are very different form new home buyers.

Michaela

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How do you sell a historic house/business? - Posted by IL Investor

Posted by IL Investor on June 22, 2007 at 21:56:41:

Hey!

How does one best sell a property in a booming area surrounded by beautiful brand new homes, when your target house is old, a little beat up, but historic?

Basically, a good friend of mine requires my assistance selling his house, and I’m going to do my best to market the heck out of it. The issue I’m looking at is that this particular house has been used as a combo home/business for the last several years, so it doesn’t specifically appeal to either in a pure sense.

The upstairs has 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, etc and some very beautiful stained glass which appraised by itself for about 25K and classic wood floors. It’s nicely carpeted in the bedrooms and the kitchen and bath were recently remodeled.

The downstairs is an opened up floor of empty space. Not really definable as private home living area without either a ton of furniture, or a bit of drywall and rearranging.

The house has been a locally well known picture, art and framery business for the last decade or so and the property sits in a part of town where large commercial buildings have been going up and major businesses have been moving into town. The lot itself probably contains a great deal of the value…

The home appraises for around 300K in it’s current condition but brand new homes of similar size are selling for 200K all around town. My friend is mentally insistent on getting his appraisal price but I just think it might be tough, and I’m hesistant deciding what direction to go to market the home. I don’t know if it would be a good idea to ignore one facet of the potential buyer base (ie - ignore families and focus only on the lot/commercial potential)

Is there a good, effective way to appeal to all potential buyers?

Any advice would be fantastic, thanks!

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Re: How do you sell a historic house/business? - Posted by michaela-CA

Posted by michaela-CA on June 23, 2007 at 10:01:31:

How large is the lot? Can it be subdivided, with the house being sold separately?

See, if your local Small Business Administration office has a bulleting board. THere are always people looking to start their own business and they might just love the house and it’s zoing of live/work. As commercial space can be quite expensive.

In fact, `check out the SCORE courses at SBA, maybe there are some that are specializing in opening a restaurant. You could then giv eout flyers to those people. This house sounds like it would be a great atmosphere for a restaurant in the middle of commercial stuff, where there are a lot of potential lunch patrons.

SInce historic buyers are very visionary driven, this is what i’ve done. Take pictures of the nicest features - stained glass, molding etc. Then put them on a sheet and color copy. Use both sides and have it laminated.
Then hang it outside under your ‘for sale’ sign. People will be compelled to look at the photos and more likely to call for an appointment, if they see something they really like.

Good luck

Michaela