We live about 40 minutes outside Milwaukee and with my growing responsibilities at 800ceoread, we need to get a little closer.
So, we are selling our house and I think there will be quite the story to tell by the time it is done.
Anybody who knows Amy or I know that we can’t do anything the traditional way. We have decided to sell the house ourselves and forgo using a real estate agent. Some might say we are crazy (this week’s Fortune is the Real Estate Survival Guide and recommends getting an agent), but we think it is going to work just fine. Amy has time to handle the inquiries and showings. For $500, you can have it listed like any other house in MLS. The service we used included professional signage and a public web page.
I thought I would give everyone the important information in case they knew someone looking for a house in western Waukesha County (that’s Wisconsin).
W324S7849 Paul Lane
Mukwonago, WI
Yahoo Map
Satellite Picture from Zillow
Important Things
- Three Bedrooms (study could be a fourth bedroom)
- 2.5 Bathrooms (master bedroom is ensuite)
- 2.5 Car Garage
- Built in 1991
- 1.1 Acre Lot
- ~2100 Square Feet
Price: $297,600
Full Listing on LakeCountryByOwner.com (page down to our listing)
Call Amy at 262-363-1564 to schedule an appointment
P.S. Freakonomics has some things to say about real estate. The looked at the ten most common words used in real estate listings and were able to divide them in two categories based on price gotten for house. One of the no-no’s is exclamation marks. You will not see any of those in our listings for the house 🙂
P.P.S. We’ll keep you posted on how things go.
Thanks for the interesting and timely (to me, anyways) post! 🙂
I’m about to sell my townhouse and have toyed with the idea of creating a webpage that I can mention in the classifieds of my local newspapers.
There I can feature photos with descriptions molded around what I’ve learned over the years about copy writing. Do a real “sales job” while also saving a few bucks (since I can host it on one of my websites). 🙂
Thanks for the tip about exclamation marks (not being a good idea in ads) – I didn’t know that and will be sure to leave them out of my headlines, etc.
Good luck with the sale of your existing home. As an “Exclusive” Buyer’s Agent, licensed real estate broker and mortgage loan officer in Elm Grove, I’d like to offer 2 of the biggest points to remember when selling on your own.
1)Remember to only show your house to pre-approved buyers. You don’t want to waste your time getting the house ready and showing to someone who’s not serious or can’t afford it! Being pre-approved is completely different than being pre-qualified!
2)Hold short open houses and figure on spending around $1000.00 on advertising when all is said and done.
As far as looking for a new home, consider working with an “Exclusive” Buyer’s Agent. This way you can guarantee that YOUR best interests are being protected during the home buying process.
Best of all, the fee is usually paid for by the sellers as they’ve already agreed to pay 2 agents’ commissions -1 of those agents might as well be working FOR you!.
Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have and Good Luck!
Greg Szablewski
http://www.yourhomebuyingagency.com
http://www.whiteoakmortgage.net
gnd@yourhomebuyingagency.com