If you’ve read my posts about selling my Boston condo as a “For Sale by Owner” property, you know my husband and I a.) are crazy and b.) have been working our butts off for the past few months. But the good news is that we just signed the P+S (purchase and sale) agreement!!
No, we didn’t get our ideal price. In fact, we went $5,000 below what we thought was our “bottom line.” I guess it wasn’t — because when the buyer said he was walking away, we basically threw ourselves at him to come back.
We still sold for a little more than we bought it for three years ago and in the end, I’m not sure an agent would have been able to get us anything higher. Who knows? But here are some things we did to finally get it sold:
- We paid $140 to a real estate group that offered an “Entry-Only” deal. We still did the open house work. They got it on MLS and in some of the local real estate papers. We also had to commit to paying a Buyer’s Broker fee. We chose 2% (rather than 2.5%). Note: After we did this, we were showing the house to brokers and clients every day.
- Paid this firm $75 extra to host a “Broker Open House.” Also a huge help since brokers were able to see the property and visualize if it worked for their clients. We provided lunch.
- Since street parking seemed to be a big concern for buyers, we signed up for a garage parking spot down the street from us and offered a year of free parking to buyers. It cost us about $2,000.
- My husband researched and found the email addresses of almost every real estate agent in the city of Boston (I warned you that we’re insane!). Every week he sent them a reminder of our property and our open house information. He definitely received a few “TAKE ME OFF YOUR LIST” responses, but one time the same guy who replied “Unsubscribe” also asked if he could come by with a client.
It was a lot of work and I’m so glad it’s over. I’m eight months pregnant and we are now able to look for a new place to live. This process is also incredibly stressful, but it’s a better problem to have.
Anyone else ever sell a house FSBO? Any tricks you used to lure buyers?
