5 Day Sale Anyone?
I'm thinking of doing a "Five Day Sale" on house that I did a short sale on ($320k appraised).
Have any of you used this method to sell one of your houses before? Any insights or comments on the good, bad, and ugly?
It seems like a great method, I'd just like to hear some stories from the trenches.
Regards,
Jeremy
I read that book also it sounded very interesting and possible.
I don't know if you have ever sold anything on ebay but thats what it reminded me of and I have always had success on ebay.
From what I read in the book it pretty much turns the the sell of the house into an auction and lets the house find its true market value.
I think a great way to improve on the method described in the book would be to find a way to avertizee on the mls with out using a realtor. At different times I have seen advertizements for the general public to list on the mls for x dollars.
If a realtor calls you though just be up front and say you can have a 200 dollar flat commision take it or leave it I have already had 50 people bid on this house already.
I've heard of the "5 day sale" before but never knew what was actually involved. How does it work?
I think any time you create urgency it's a good thang. How come you haven't joined or inquired about our DFW investor group yet?
The basic gist of it is that you tell everyone the house will be auctioned off to the highest bidder on Saturday, create a huge sense of urgency, and hopefully 50 people show up on auction day. Then you just let them start bidding on the house in a round robin fashion until everyone is done.
The idea is that by creating a sense of urgency you'll sell the house much quicker and for a higher price.
It is based on a book by Bill Effros called "How to sell your home in 5 days".
Quote:
On 2003-11-11 15:08, kjjackson wrote:
I've heard of the "5 day sale" before but never knew what was actually involved. How does it work?
Too busy buying and selling houses!!
PM me with the details.
Regards,
Jeremy
Quote:
On 2003-11-11 15:09, cpifer wrote:
I think any time you create urgency it's a good thang. How come you haven't joined or inquired about our DFW investor group yet? <IMG SRC="images/forum/smilies/icon_eek.gif">
I tried it just as the book stated. Turned out pure crap. Got one phone call on Friday. Actually, you could say I did a 7-day sell because one local paper ran a weekly ad, while the other started on Thurs.
The problems as I see them: Effos gives himself an out if the plan doesn't work. He says your starting price was too high, or you didn't advertise enough or in the right places. I advertise in the 2 most widely read and published papers in the area, the ones people go to to find properties. I also priced a $150K property for $99K. Again only one call.
Why? I think the reason is simple, Effros gives too much credit to your possible buyers. He says that interested buyers will know that area, and know that the price is a "steal."
The Truth: That simply isn't so. Most buyers interested in buying are looking thru an agent, and are depending on that agent to determine if the property is correctly priced. Which brings up another problem. Agents aren't going to show this house UNLESS you, as the seller, guarantee them a fee upon sell, OR their clients agree to pay a fee upon sell.
The solution: IF you still decide you want to try this method, you need to put a FMV or recent appraisal price in your ad as well. This will create the "steal" pricing in the reader's mind. It will probably also make them think something is wrong with the property, but several may still be curious enough to actually show up.
Roger
That's interesting. I had the opposite result. I used this method to sell my own home last May. It worked *very* well; we had 132 families through the home in one weekend and had 27 bidders. We did, however, hire a consultant to guide us through the process and provide several marketing methods not covered in the book. I don't think I could have done as well as we did by just using the book "How to sell your home in 5 days" alone. Go to 5-daysale .com (take the space out) and watch the media videos and then read the testimonials.
Off topic: I also used this exact same method to sell our 11 year old sofa last month, got over 40 calls and sold it Sunday night for $800 cash. The starting bid we used was $100.
It can be done, but you need to your marketing skills impeccable to pull it off.
good luck
It has been utilized here in Los Angeles with mixed results. One real estate converted to auction only and they lasted about 12 months. You cannot limit yourself to only one approach.
There are times when an auction approach is applicable.
But before we get into that let me state I believe you should always cover the brokers who have clients. You can do this by showing them the magic of no commission net offer. In which by their skill as a Broker they can handle an offer situation and get a better price then any just investor or end user buyer. Now this is a truth. Most people do not get the constant practice of many and varied offers to really get good at it. When to switch to paper, when to come out of paper and wave cash, oh god I could go on for hours. I like it when the Seller says I am not paying any commission or they say my commission rate is $200. I take that as a challenge. On the average sale wherein there is an objection by the seller to paying commission I make the non commisison offer and my fee is of course now about 10%. But then I have taken that offer way way down to the bottom of the sales barrel. I think it is www.fun.My Investors love it cause I get a much reduced price as I work from paper to cash to whatever. Free tickets to Dodger games!!
Getting back to auctions. You need the Brokers to bring in the customers and you must just have them qualify in with their customer and they will receive a full commission. Remember in their office and stuff they are splitting like crazy. Now here is a sale in which there is a full commission and they are there with client in tow.
You just do a straight auction. "Good day ladies and gentlemen and oh yes you Real Estate Brokers in attendence. For the benefit of you would be buyers, we have arranged to have financisng available and here are the rate sheets adjusted to your downpayments and oh yes your credit reports. Normaly we have a cosigner available to you who are credit challenged, just make yourselves known and we will announce your names."
Big joke everybody laughes, you take a big breath and away you go. Auction time. Lots of fun. But, and hear me well, I can give you four or five ways to off list sell which are even better.
You know if you would read something more then "Hi Thar my Names Bob and I want to buy your house." You could learn these little goodies. I keep saying this but nobodies listens. Ah well.
Lucius
SRC="images/forum/smilies/icon_cool.gif"> <IMG SRC="images/forum/smilies/icon_cool.gif"> [ Edited by Lufos on Date 01/24/2004 ]