Posted by ray@lcorn on December 14, 1999 at 24:30:49:
Hello all,
If I could butt in here… I was just cleaning out a book case in my office this afternoon and ran across a copy of the Effros book “How to Sell a Home in 5 Days”. I bought it several years ago when I had an inventory of single family houses I wanted to sell. I never used the method because the market was very good, but I remember I lent the book to a good friend and he used it to sell a piece of property he had in another state. Turned out he wound up selling it to a guy that had made him an offer the month before, and the guy paid about $10T more than the original offer.
The method is something along the lines of a silent auction. Rather than using outcry bids, the seller calls registered buyers after an open house period. He (the author) has suggestions for how to handle a number of details, and though my friend only used about half of the suggestions in the book, he was pleased with the results. He is also still a good friend of mine since he returned the book!
I think part of the value of the method may be that it helps take some of the emotion out of the process for the seller, and puts more of it in for the prospective buyers. That and it also eliminates procrastination on both sides!
I just finished rehabbing ‘this old house’ and it can be seen at my web site. Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos
I have a party interested in renting it, but I need to get cash out to rehab another property. I have $55k in it, and it should appraise for $110k or so. Should I rent and refinance or try to sell. Thanks for any and all help.
Rich
Posted by Carmen on December 11, 1999 at 11:00:24:
I foolishly thought it would be easier to refi than to sell, so I let a L/O tenant in with little down, just to get rid of monthly payments. Well, three months later, no refi, and now I couldn’t sell because there were tenants in it! I vote for SELL, even if it takes a little longer - unless, of course, you’re hogwild about being a landlord, but it doesn’t sound like you are.
Try offering Owner Financing (sell the note at close for cash), running your own creative ads (don’t rely only on your RE agent), maybe try the Effros Auction method? To help your agent, you could offer a “bonus” to the Selling office - that always perks up the other realtors who go into the MLS.
Joe,
I have it listed with a realtor, but have only had tire kickers - people who knew what it looked like before wanting to see inside. What should I tell my agent to get this property off the books and into my positive cash-flow?
Posted by Carmen_FL on December 13, 1999 at 17:08:32:
Effros is the last name of a guy who wrote a book called “Sell Your Home in 5 Days”. Very simplistic book, I thought, but describes how to auction off a house within 5 days. Never tried it, but he claims you can’t go wrong - as long as you get enough calls to your ad by the Friday before the Sunday sale.