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Two weekends ago I conducted my first HBS (to help a friend) & it was plagued from the start as it was in a VERY rural area. Signs were scattered at major intersections over a 20 mi radius around the homesite area. As Jackie taught me, the starting price was right, Craigslist ads were changed frequently & in different cities near and far, however people through the door were much less than anticipated and the Sunday night round robin didn’t need to take place. This week someone who had come by called, arranged financing, submitted an offer, and the sellers are now happy since the buyers want close quickly to qualify for the “free” 1st Time Homebuyer $$$$.
Lessons learned:
* Lots of signs and frequently changing CL ads work (buyer came from a CL ad)
* Stay suburban/urban where people with some $$$$ want to live and / or play
* Stick to higher priced homes where people can pay cash (this one sold for only $86k)
* Don’t work for peanuts (as I did on this one only because the sellers are friends)
* Putting out/maintaining/recovering signs takes time – an HBS is a two or three person operation
* Sometimes luck has to play a hand too (since I can’t count on luck in the future I will post my LLs where I can see them regularly and review them b4 planning the next HBS in a couple weeks)Good luck to everyone who decides to do a Highest Bidder Sale !!
Hank
Hank–this is good news. I haven’t gotten one call yet, but I am pressing forward with my HBS for this weekend. I’ve got mortgage broker’s scheduled to be there both days (not the entire 5 hours though) and an attorney that I can direct them to in order to reduce taxes. Got the inspection done yesterday and there are some warts, but no show stoppers. I am hoping this will be a successful sale and I can put a check in the win column for my first HBS.
Hank
That’s great news — see the exposure found a buyer after all.
Greg
With all the information on the internet, you do not need to get ANY calls. Do those ads daily, put out 30-40 signs, have a low starting bid and you’ll have a HUGE success. I can’t wait to hear the details
Jackie
no need to put the signs all over town ( unless it is a little town)
I go out 2-3 miles from the house – with one sign leading to another sign, leading to another sign, etc….
Day 1 open house results
6 phonecalls
2 realtors
15 “civilians” which included nosy neighbors, a few investors and a couple of somewhat interested folks.
0 bids which is a real problem.I am relived people actually showed up, but it would have been nice to have some actual bidders. I guess tomorrow will tell me where this is going. The people got rid of the clutter and did a respectable job cleaning, but they didn’t spend a lot of time with it or any real effort (window washing for example). Hopefully, we get real interested folks tomorrow.
Day 2 open house results
3 phonecalls
1 realtor
12 civilians
0 bidsI guess on the plus side, I can watch Sunday night football instead of making a bunch of phonecalls. Many of the people that came today were more interested in stealing my information packet so they could sell their own house. Funny.
My lessons learned:
1) Find owners that are willing to pay for an ad in the paper
2) Deal with owners that have fewer vices. They smoke, have pets and cook with asian oils a lot. This created a unique aroma in the house which we did what we could with open windows and doors, candles and chocolate chip cookies.
3) Find owners that are motivated enough to clean their house so you can eat off the floor. They need to clean the windows, clean the floors and do a few minor repairs. To his credit, he did fix a bunch of things that were wrong with the hot water heater and breaker box.Since I purchased yet another “education”, I am left wondering if my town isn’t too old fashion/stubborn for things like this to work. I guess I will find out next Spring as we are heading into winter and as slow as things are now, from Thanksgiving to Easter it will be even slower.
Greg
What was the real value of the house? what was your starting bid?
My guess is your starting bid was too high and that resulted in the low turn out
You should start at 40% LESS than the real market valuethe newspaper ad would not have helped at all if the starting bid is too high
with that much repair work needed, I would have started at $59,000
Real value $110-115k
Starting bid $74.5kBut without one bid at 74.5k I am wondering if it was even worth that. Wouldn’t SOMEONE put a bid down?
The tax assessor has it at 178k but they are crazy. If you put $15k (paint, countertops, toilets, bath cabinets/sinks/faucets, appliances) into it, it would be worth $145 at least. It is in a neighborhood of $200-400k houses. If you did a big time rehab (new windows, roof, HVAC, flooring) it could see the $200k region itself.
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