{"id":260,"date":"2006-09-29T22:06:41","date_gmt":"2006-09-29T13:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2006-09-29\/260"},"modified":"2006-09-29T22:06:41","modified_gmt":"2006-09-29T13:06:41","slug":"how-to-sell-a-house-quickly-and-at-a-profit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2006-09-29\/260","title":{"rendered":"How to Sell A House Quickly, and At a Profit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nOne-year-old Anthony on floor duty in the kitchen of our old house, circa 2003<\/b><\/div>\n\n

We sold our Cupertino house today.<\/p>\n\n

I'm not sure whether our method is the best, but for what it's worth,\nhere's how we sold it quickly, and for a profit<\/span>:<\/p>\n\n

    \n\n

  1. Buy a crappy, run-down, termite-infested house at what turns out to\nbe the start of one of the greatest housing booms of all time. (I\nrecommend,<\/span> however, that you know<\/i> it's termite infested before\nbuying it; we didn't.)<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  2. Over the course of the next few years, remodel, pouring more money\ninto it than you paid for the whole property to begin with. Include ample\namounts of blood, sweat, and tears. Lots of tears. (Do save the receipts,\nat least for the money you spend, because it increases your basis for tax\npurposes.)<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  3. Allow enough years to pass so that you clearly miss the peak of the\nhousing bubble, and consider selling your house as the market seems to be\nstarting a death<\/span> spiral. Be sure to<\/span> have an over-inflated idea for how much\nthe house is worth.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  4. Fill out all the disclosure forms, but where they have a 2-inch line\nto answer a question<\/span> about, say, plumbing issues you might be aware of,\nwrite “see attached” and provide reams of information about\nanything and everything you might suspect. Be very open<\/span>. (After all, you\nremember how screwed you felt when the lies of those that sold you the\nhouse became apparent.) In the end, supply a report<\/span> in excess of 5,000\nwords.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  5. Feel bad when your real-estate agent's first-impression instinct is\nthat your desired price is at least $100,000 more than he feels it might be\nworth in the market.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  6. Feel worse when, after really checking out the house, doing a lot<\/span> of\nresearch, and consulting with other experts, he suggests an asking price\nthat's more than 2.5 times lower than his initial off-the-cuff\nimpression.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  7. Feel even worse, still, when you add up the 1.5\" thick stack of\nreceipts from the remodels and realize that if you sell at the offered\nprice, you'll actually take a loss<\/span><\/i> on the property. Shake head in\nwonder.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  8. Give away, sell cheaply, donate, or throw away virtually everything\nyou own in the house. Then spend $3,000+ to have “stagers” set up the house\nwith furnishings tastefully arranged to make the house feel inviting.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  9. Put the house on the market on a Wednesday,<\/span> and have 98 real-estate\nagents visit it during the “Broker Tour” the next day.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  10. Hold an open house on both Saturday and Sunday, to virtual mobs,\nwith something like 200 people (or groups? I'm not sure<\/span>) going through.\nCreate lots of buzz.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  11. Prepare to listen to offers on Thursday afternoon (because it's\nFriday morning where you live now). Hope for multiple offers.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  12. Feel slightly vindicated price-wise when there are eight<\/i>\noffers, most of them well over the asking price (three were not serious,\noffering substantially less than the others).<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  13. Of five serious offers, one was highest, but three, at essentially\nthe same price, were clustered in a group<\/span> not far behind. So, give that\ncluster a second<\/span> chance to be highest, and wait an hour or so for followup\noffers.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  14. Two from the cluster submitted followup offers that were higher than\nthe initial highest. So, go back to the initial highest to give them<\/i>\na second<\/span> chance as well, but when they decline to raise their offer, go\nahead and pick the higher of the followup offers and sell the house to\nthem.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  15. Note with minor satisfaction that the house sold on the first day\nyou would even listen to offers. Officially, the house was listed on the\nmarket for 8 days.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  16. After subtracting commissions (don't get me started on the nature of how\nreal-estate professionals are paid for their services) and other fees,\nrealize that with the higher-than-listed price, you actually made a slight<\/span>\nprofit<\/i> on the house.<\/p><\/li>\n\n

  17. Try not to realize that the margin is so slim that if you take into\naccount the property taxes you've paid over the years, your profit\ndisappears to about a break<\/span>-even scenario.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<\/ol>\n\n

    I find it hard to fathom how we could basically break even having owned\nthe house during the housing market like we've seen since we bought it in\n1998. I can't<\/span> help but wonder how much we would have sold it for had we not\nspent a dime<\/span> on improvements. Certainly, we would have gotten less, but not\nthat much<\/i> less.<\/p>\n\n

    As it turns out, there are two ways I can<\/span> look at the bright side: one\nis to ignore the market, and concentrate on the fact that we got out of it\nall that we put into it (at least money wise — part of our soul will\nlikely stay for some time). Another way is to conveniently forget about\nwhat we put into it, and just be happy that we were able to ride the phat\npart of the housing-boom wave.<\/p>\n\n

    (Is it okay for someone my age to use “phat” instead of “fat”, or is that against the Laws of Hip?)<\/p>\n\n

    Fumie and I were thrilled that there were multiple offers, but it was\nalso very stressful. We rememberer exceedingly well<\/i> the feelings we\nhad putting together an offer on a house,<\/span> the twisted-knot in our stomach\nas we waited to hear back, and the crushing<\/b> feeling of having our\noffer rejected in favor of someone else. It was a<\/span> horrible, horrible\nexperience. Later we went on to buy this house, but that in no way makes\nthe first experience feel<\/i> any better.<\/p>\n\n

    All the agents (of the serious offers) presented their clients' offers\nwell, making sure that we knew all about the client and how much they\nwanted to raise their kids in our beautiful house. Two of the<\/span> prospective\nbuyers even presented in person, telling us how much they loved every\naspect of the house. One even called<\/span> her husband and put him on her\ncell-phone speaker phone so I could<\/span> listen in from Kyoto via my real-estate\nagent's speaker phone, about how he liked the electronic enhancements I'd\ndone. He even commented<\/span> appreciatively about the tactile transducer that I\nhad<\/span> bolted under the living-room floor. (It shows that he really read the\ndisclosures I wrote!<\/span>)<\/p>\n\n

    (Those of you who might have ever been to a movie<\/span> night at my house will\nknow what a tactile\ntransducer<\/a> is.)<\/p>\n\n

    It was gratifying to hear all this praise lavished on my house, and\nabout the nice families that were interested in it, but half of me wishes\nthat I didn't<\/span> hear any of this stuff. It turns<\/span> a financial<\/span> transaction into\nan emotional one. From an emotional standpoint, I would<\/span> have been thrilled\nfor any of these nice families to have it (heck, two of the families had\nkids the same age as Anthony, to within a week<\/span> or so).<\/p>\n\n

    But only one could get it, and I was<\/span> now faced with having to pick,\nknowing that the others would feel as crushed as Fumie and I did<\/span> back when\nour offer didn't get picked. In any case<\/span>, the offer that was highest won,\nbut we feel bad for the other families.<\/p>\n\n

    Fumie and I also remember how yucky it felt during our second attempt to\nbuy a house<\/span> (when we bought this house that we're now selling). Our initial<\/span> offer was countered, and our counter was countered back. The last counter<\/span>\nback from the seller (who turned out to be lying cheats) was to eek out an\nextra $1,000. They risked losing the entire sale (and much goodwill)\nbecause they wanted to up the price by less than\n1\/5th<\/sup><\/sub> of one percent. What tightwads.<\/p>\n\n

    So we didn't want to be like that. Going back for a second<\/span> round was\nentirely reasonable, and perhaps it would have been reasonable for a third<\/span>\nround, considering that there were eight initial offers and still a lot<\/span> of\ninterest after the 2nd round. We didn't want to be jerks, so we left it at\nthat. There was almost certainly still money on the table, but it wouldn't\nhave been worth it, emotionally. We'd rather<\/span> be able to sleep well at\nnight.<\/p>\n\n

    In the end, it was the family with the cellphone-calling-wife and\nelectronics-appreciating husband whose offer was the highest. I hope they<\/span>\nfeel thrilled. I feel good<\/span> because we got more than our asking price, but\nrealize that they probably have some measure of concern about what they\nspent because they “paid well over asking,” but I can't<\/span> wonder\nif this is a result<\/span> of a too<\/span>-low asking price. I wonder<\/span> what the emotions\nwould be like had we listed it for my initial way-too-high price, and then\ncome waaaaaay down and ended up selling for what we sold today. The end dollar<\/span> amount is the same, but would the emotions?<\/p>\n\n

    Hindsight tends to be pretty good, so it's easy to second guess my\nreal-estate agent. But in the<\/span> end, I feel fortunate<\/span> that we could work with\nhim (Marc Roos<\/a>). Back when we were looking for a house<\/span> to buy, he personally\nwalked us through more than 60 houses<\/b>, and was entirely patient with\nus, and we learned to trust both his skill and integrity. Those feelings\nwere only strengthened during this selling experience. I highly<\/span> recommend\nhim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We sold our Cupertino house today.<\/p>

    I'm not sure whether our method is the best, but for what it's worth, here's how we sold it quickly, and for a profit:<\/p>

    Buy a crappy, run-down, termite-infested house at what turns out to be the start of one of the greatest housing booms of all time. (I recommend, however, that you know it's termite infested before buying it; we didn't.)<\/p>

    Over the course of the next few years, remodel, pouring more money into it than you paid for the whole property to begin with. Include ample amounts of blood, sweat, and tears. [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}