Finally, yesterday I blocked the second number, which I created specifically for the sale of housing. In a little more than a month, they called me more than 200 times from various agencies. All of them offered their services and were ready to "take into circulation" right here and now. Indeed, for a fairly simple job, you can have a pretty good amount. This story, first of all, will be useful to all people who plan to buy or sell an apartment.
First days: how it was
So, I had an old one-room apartment in a residential area, the cost of such housing was almost at the bottom of the price career. Yes, there was old furniture and decent repairs. That is, normal housing conditions, but most people would prefer to make cosmetics. A significant drawback of my apartment was that it was on the fifth floor of a five-story building.
Having looked at prices for such housing, I set the price at 42,000 dollars. It is worth noting that this cost was below average, bargaining was also not without meaning. Having photographed the entire room, I put it on several popular online real estate sites.
A lot of unnecessary calls
On the very first day after the announcement was posted, 15 people called me. It is worth noting that I pre-registered the "left" number. After all, I understood that calls can be made quite often, so at the right time I could always pull out a SIM card.
All these 15 calls were from various agencies that tried to persuade me to work with their company. Everyone wanted to come today, look at the apartment and conclude a contract. Realtors charge a little less than $ 1,300 for their services. It was noteworthy that I did not refuse anyone to view the home. He told everyone that in the evening you can come and see the apartment, but I will not conclude a contract until the appearance of the buyer. Everyone agreed over the phone, but no one came.
Are there real buyers?
It is highly predicted - at first, not a single real buyer called me. The phone rang only from the proposals of realtor offices. When I told the intermediaries: “Well, if you want to draw up a contract, we draw it up. But only if you bring me a buyer, ”by this principle no one wanted to work with me.
However, there was one guy who nevertheless took it and decided to work with me. He came, looked at the area and the apartment. He said that the price is quite real and below market. A few days later he called me and said that there was supposedly a buyer who was ready to give $ 38,000 for an apartment, and this price is incredibly high for my property. Given the services of this guy on hand, I would have received as much as 36.8 thousand dollars. Thank you, but it's 5 thousand less than I planned to help out.
Fancy Realtor Tricks
Most intermediaries worked according to a pattern, offered their services, told why they, and not someone else, and so on. At the same time, none of them had real buyers who would be ready to immediately come and watch the apartment. But in addition to the classic "tackles" were also very non-standard. The phone rings:
- Hi, Yurok (approx. Yuri - author of the material)!
- Um ... hi.
- How are you, my friend, is everything all right? Come on to you right, okay? I see you are selling an apartment here. How long has the announcement been hanging?
- About a week, but what?
My surprise knew no bounds, but slowly I was beginning to get used to this manner of communication.
- Wow! Already a week hanging and not for sale? Well, this is not the case, I can help you with this. Selling very fast.
- Yes, I don’t need to go very fast.
- My friend, we have a new agency that works in a modern way.I have been working in Italy for more than 10 years and I know all the intricacies of business, I will implement this system here. I wanted to say that you generally suck pictures. I have a sidekick from Croatia, he is a photographer, for a small fee he will do everything in the best possible way. Are you fucking
- Sekou. Okay, the hut is not mine, but my brother, I'll throw him your contacts. Come on, good luck!
For the first time in my life after the first conversation, the phone number was blacklisted. This guy called 6 more times.
First real buyers
A few weeks later, the first buyer appeared who was really interested. It was a middle-aged woman who saw my ad. She wanted to buy an apartment for her son, who had recently come from the army. She liked the house, they also agreed on the price. Agreed on $ 41,000. There was only one caveat - she did not have enough money. She had half, and the second she had to take on credit.
While the woman was collecting the necessary documents for registering a mortgage, I made an announcement, because we already had an oral agreement. But she had some problems: one bank, shortly before, stopped issuing loans for housing, while others had very unattractive conditions. Therefore, the purchase fell through.
I regretted very much that I had removed the ad and simply lost almost two weeks of my time. Perhaps in this period of time there were real buyers who were ready to immediately part with their money and get housing. But when I again advertised, there were a lot more calls from real buyers. Of course, the intermediaries did not disappear, they also continued to aggressively advertise their services.
Apartment for sale
The next day, another woman called and said that she was ready to buy an apartment. At the same time, almost without looking, she was not particularly interested in repairs and so on. Moreover, she is ready to give immediately the whole amount in cash. One day before the sale of real estate, another realtor called me:
- Hello! We are located not far from your apartment, I and the buyer. I am sure that if he sees your apartment, he will like everything and he will buy it. In this case, you will conclude a contract with us?
- And if I do not conclude an agreement with you, you will not show the housing to the buyer knowing that it will definitely suit him?
“You don't understand anything about this.” Will you sign a contract with us? There is a real buyer with money.
- Call tomorrow after twelve hours.
- Strange you are talking to me, usually sellers are happy that there is a buyer. Why tomorrow after twelve?
“Because I have breakfast before twelve.” Goodbye.
I didn’t want to refuse anyone realizing that at the last moment the deal could be broken. However, the next day everything went smoothly, and I sold my one-room apartment for 41 thousand American dollars.
What do I understand?
From this story, I learned the following:
-
Most intermediaries wish to receive both from the seller and the buyer. If one of the parties is not ready to share and sign an agreement with the agency, the second will also receive nothing. After all, an agent needs commissions from two sides.
-
It is quite difficult to sell an apartment yourself. It is even more difficult to regularly receive calls from various real estate agencies that need only one thing from you.
- Many people trust precisely the agencies and do not want to cooperate directly, believing that they can cheat faster. This is something like going to the store. If you want products - go to the market, if you want an apartment - go to a real estate agency.
I will summarize
I managed to sell the apartment a little more than a month from the time I put it on the Internet. At the same time, I spent a lot less money, the total amount was a little less than $ 100 for everything. Including paid placement of announcements on various Internet sites, gasoline, registrar services (we shared them with the customer in half). Now we can safely say that I saved about $ 1,000, which is a very decent amount.
