Saturday and we’ve ended up with 5 showings. Not bad for a first weekend on the market considering how things are going in [tag]real estate[/tag] right now and the fact that it is still early April. Actually we weren’t really looking at selling in April but it was important for us to get out there first to help set the price in our market. Here is how to handle showings when you are [tag]selling your own home[/tag].
Real Estate
Sell Your Own Home – Day 6
Well, we’re officially on MLS. Whoo-hoo! Frankly, it’s been a bit of kluge, but I guess in the end it all works out. Our very first day we get a call from a realtor to setup a showing. My wife spoke with her and after setting a time for the showing my wife inquired as to whether or not she was a realtor. Generally you don’t stay at your house for showings. It helps the potential buyers see your home as their home if they don’t see the people that currently live there. Also, it keeps you from answering awkward questions. And, if you are very lucky, they may want to spend a lot of time going back and forth and talking about your house if they are very interested in it. However, we aren’t going to leave strangers alone in our house without a realtor. (The realtor is semi-liable and probably wouldn’t allow anything shifty. It isn’t worth the trouble for them.)
Selling Your Own Home – Day 5
Hello scammers. Well, our house isn’t even on MLS yet, and already the scam punks are coming out of the woodwork. So far, I’ve gotten two emails from two different people who actually already own homes in my city but they live in another city and the market there is …
Selling Your Own Home – Day 4
We got our first showing today. It was someone who lives on our block as a renter and walked by the sign. The wife came without her husband because he has a travel job and won’t be back until next week. Seemed like she really liked it. The nice part …
Selling Your Own Home – Day 3
Today, we got our first phone call. It was from someone who walked by our house and saw the sign. No idea of how serious they were or weren’t, but it is still nice to get our first call. Still no MLS listing. The guys at Iggyshouse are either dragging …
Selling Your Own Home – Day 2
Friday, and the frustrations begin. We have decided to use Iggyshouse.com (more on that next post) to list our house. The main reason? A free MLS listing. Just because you are hip and cool and willing to do all the leg work to sell your home yourself doesn’t mean that everyone is. In fact, the vast majority of people buying homes still use real estate agents. Whether using a Realtor is a good or bad thing we will not go into today, but if you want to sell your house and most buyers are using Realtors, then good marketing sense says that you should go where the Realtors are. And the Realtors are on MLS.
Quick history lesson (don’t worry this won’t hurt). Not long ago, the MLS system was coming under scrutiny for uncompetitive practices. Like most businesses when the heat got turned up they tried to see if they could get the problem to go away without actually having to change their very profitable business model. As it ended up, MLS opened up the system to BUYERS by letting member companies provide MLS listings to the public (hello realtor.com and so on). This was a shrewd move, because the heat did go away, and they are laughing all the way to the bank. Why? Because it is still a very closed system when it comes to SELLER access. In other words, there is no way for you, Joe Public to get your home on MLS directly. You have to go through a broker.
Other Information on Real Estate
I’m personally selling my home right now, and blogging about the process here. So, I started wondering where I could find the same kind of thing elsewhere, particularly those who had sold their house without a real estate agent too. I am most definitely not talking about the barely disguised …
Selling Your Own Home – Day 1
Day One. We will be listing our house tomorrow (Thursday) in the afternoon. Apparently this is a good time to go on [tag]MLS[/tag] because [tag]real estate brokers[/tag] will be looking to setup their weekend showings. But, it is not too early so that it doesn’t come up as "new" in the minds of some brokers (who apparently have short memories, I guess).
So today is about taking pictures and writing descriptions.
Today’s most important step is something that we didn’t have to worry about last time we sold a house just three years ago. Updating [tag]Zillow[/tag]!
Sell Home Yourself
As a professional in a service industry, I know that often times it can seem as though a professional doesn’t do anything that you couldn’t do yourself. Usually, that means that your professional is just very good at their job. However, that isn’t always the case. There are plenty of …
Buy Real Estate?
Whether or not now is a good time to buy [tag]real estate[/tag] depends, as most things do in finance, on time and amount. For example, if you have been renting for the last year or two and have saved up 20% for a down payment and you just found the house of your dreams, then yes, now is a great time to buy real estate. But what about people looking for a good investment? Is now the right time?