Tips on Selling - for Sale by Owner

Hi D.:

I think with the market being as it is it all depends. If you have to sell it fast then you should probably go with a realtor that can really advertise it. If you can go with the flow.. you can list it on buyowner.com. They get 90,000 hits a day! And a place in Lakeview is great around here especially if you can cut out the other fees that would have to be included if you have a realtor. I just recently bought my home on buyowner and I am also getting ready to purchase a 3 flat off of there! I love it. You can also list it there and with a realtor and set up something where you can sell it on buyowner after the realtor contract is up if someone finds it on there. My fiance is a broker and he knows of a few good realtors if that is the route you want to take. Let me know. Maybe I may be interested if you can send me then info. Also post it on here! You would be surprized! Thanks! A. Cook ____@____.com

I sold my one bedroom Gold Coast condo 2 years ago myself. I put ads in the Tribune (weekends only) and on Craig's list (which is FREE). My buyer actually came from Craig's list. I was really surprised at the activity I got from the Craig's list free ad. I know the market has slowed down quite a bit but I would try Craig's list out for a week or two and see if you get any activity before you invested a lot of money in other methods. Good luck!

Hello! We just sold our home back in May of this year. We sold by owner. We posted info on Craigslist.com and also signed up with the MLS. The MLS is what realtors use to find listings. It was $400 to have our house on the website and we had to agree to pay any realtor a choosen % if they brought us the sale. If someone walked it with the by owner sign we were only out the $400. We agreed to pay %2 to a realtor if they brought us the sale. In the end we ended up selling by owner but had about 3 showings a week since we listed on the MLS. Let me know if you would like more info on that!
M.

Hi D., as you've seen from the prior responses, it's pretty slow right now for sellers. It's truly become a buyer's market.

My boyfriend is a Real Estate broker and has worked w/ individuals in terms of doing a "flat listing" where he charges a flat fee to list your place on the MLS. He's pretty flexible and even offers buyers $1,000 toward closings, done open houses, etc. to attempt to rustle up interest toward his "seller" client's properties. You may want to contact him in order to get a market analysis, discuss flat listing costs, ideas for selling your place, etc. He works not only in the city (where his primary business takes place) but also in the McHenry (chain-o-lakes) area... Actually, he's pretty much all over the Chicagoland area. In fact, he may evan have a buyer he's working with that may be a potential for your place (he's working w/ several buyers right now) as well.

As someone else noted before, if a realtor brings in a buyer on a for-sale-by-owner place, the sellers usually give at least a 2% commission. If you're interested, you can reach him (Tony I.) via his direct # ###-###-#### or his website www.tonyinacay.com.

He's worked several of my friends to buy places, and has sold 3 of my relatives homes.

Best of luck to you!

G.

We are trying to sell our place using Buy Owner.com. It has been on the market since April and we have only had 1 bit, but no takers. If you have lots of time and it is no rush, then try and sell it yourself. If you need to get out fast, then use a realtor. It is a buyers market at the moment with a lot to choose from. What we did is go around open houses in the area to see what is selling for what price. If your place a new, then take just a little off of their price to price your place. If your place is old and needs work, or if it vintage with great character, then go about 10 to 20 k lower then a new place with the same features.
If you do opt for selling yourself, I feel that Buy Owner is a rip off. Just get yourself a few signs, do open houses every weekend, post flyers anywhere you can, use the Reader and Craig's List and get a book on how to sell your home.
hope this helps and good luck to you

Hi D.--my upstairs neighbor (we are also in Lakeview, near Pine Grove/Grace) got transferred to New York a fe wmnonths ago and put their two-bedroom, two bath condo (very nice, gut rehabbed, stainless, etc) on the market i think at the beginning of september. still didnt' sell. fortuantely the company he works for has a deal where if you can't sell they'll buy you out and then sell it themselves, so he didnt' get totally screwed! But it's still on the market--we're used to, I think, last eyar when you woudl put something up for sale and it woudl get snapped up in a couple of weeks. That does not seem to be the case anymore, sadly. The market is not great right now, so I would suggest not going too high with your askign price (although, they had a rpetty reasonable price, it jsut seemed no one was buying). I have a really great relator who sold our last house and found us this one, she's very funny and lives in the neighborhood so she knows it well--if you don't have a realtor yet and need one let me know and I'll pass along her info. She also gave us great tips when we were selling our place for easy improvements we coudl do before putting it on the market--and we sold it for a $70,000 profit after only being there 2 years (so clearly, the market is different now!). A realtor can give you the best idea of how to price it based on comps in your area and looking at your place's assets/drawbacks.

D.,

My husband and I thought of going FSBO - after doing some research we opted for an agent- we went with Coldwell. I realized that you still should pay the buyers agent to get them to show your place. You can get a agent down to 5% - but half of that goes to the buyers agent. In this market there are no a lot of buyers so having the agent list your house on all their sites does help.

We have been on the market one week and it is very slow - we are in Glencoe at 300 Vernon Ave. and have a great 3 bed 2 1/2 bath - very charming and very updated - there is not alot of competition in our price range of 775,000. This is probably 5% lower then what we want to go on for but our agent stressed dont go high.

To be honest I dont know if our agent is doing all she could - she has other listings. We have the perfect house for some family wanting to get into the good school districts and the northshore.

Are you staying in the area? - we are moving back home to Indiana - we miss our family.

I am trying to think of how to reach young couples in your area that might want to move to surburbs like the northshore. Any suggestions? Is there a place where young moms hang out? - the house behind us just got sold to a young couple from the city - she has a two year old and a newborn.

Let me know if what you decide to do. We really wanted to go sale by owner - but worried about the market - I will keep my ears open to any of my friends looking to buy in Lakeview!

Maureen Wozniak
____@____.com