RISP
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2012
- Messages
- 407
Hi friends,
I could use some advice. The situation is as follows: My DW inherited her mother's house a while back, and now that we have finally sorted out the estate and sold/donated/given away/thrown out her belongings, we are ready to sell. I decided to handle that myself, as the RE market here in the cities of Southern Germany is, frankly, crazy. It's a real seller's market. Prices increased around 8% p.a. for the last 10, 12 years. I have experience from doing a self-directed sale of our first apartment a few years back, which went extremely well.
It's a nice, rather large house on a decent-sized lot (bigger than they build them these days). The location is not A+ prime, but it is in a nice neighborhood. The house is 40 years old, though, and quite a few things are dated. Bathrooms and windows have never been renovated, for example. I have been following the RE market around here for a few years, so I think I have a decent understanding of market prices. I also used an online estimator (for a fee) that returned a number which I believe to be wayyyy too low (let's call this estimate 100,000€. In reality, it is a multiple of that. I'm not comfortable sharing exact figures here; hope you don't mind).
So we set our asking price at 126,000€. The thinking was, we would rather not go below 113,000; we'd be happy with 120,000€; so 126,000€ was really a bit of a stretch goal. I wanted to start negotiations with a price that is still somewhat realistic, but rather on the high side.
I put up an ad on the most popular German real estate website, wrote a nice exposé, put up a lot of good pictures. In the first two days, 1,600+ people read this ad, but just around 30 contacted me. A few were spammers and obvious hustlers, and I practically had to fight off real estate agents who wanted my business with a stick. One guy didn't like the exact location when I gave him the address, so I ended up arranging 11 showings so far. At first, I was very pleased with myself because I felt the asking price was low enough to still draw sufficient interest, but high enough that the field of interested parties was narrowed down to a number I can handle in addition to my other duties as an employee, husband, father, etc.
I have done eight showings so far, and the feedback I get is VERY positive.
- The first family loved it and offered 120,000€ right on the spot, even saying 'let us know if there is a better offer and we'll see what we can do'.
- At least three other parties are highly interested, but haven't given me a concrete figure yet. One of those families/couples wants a second appointment still this week, and announced that they would give me their offer then.
- I have a feeling that two more parties like the house, but disagree with me about the need for renovations. I think they will make an offer, but it will likely be quite low.
- One couple said 'it's nice, but not for us', and one couple didn't exactly seem thrilled. I don't expect to hear from them again.
I'm starting to think that the house may actually sell at or ABOVE asking price. (Yes, I'm aware that none of this is binding in any way, and it's possible that I'm getting carried away here. Could totally turn out that they all like the house, but try to low-ball me. I wouldn't mind selling to the first party for 120,000€ at all, if nothing better comes up. And of course even they could quickly change their mind.)
It's obviously a good problem to have, but has anybody been in the same situation and can share their experiences? I'm especially interested in how you handled a situation where several parties offered to buy for the asking price. Did you succeed in extracting even higher offers? If yes, how did you handle a possible bidding process? I'd rather not let this turn into an open-ended auction with 1,000€ increases, so there would need to be some kind of structured format. And I would like to keep this a sale-by-owner.
Sorry for the wall of text, and looking very much forward to any replies you might have to offer. Thank you already in advance.
I could use some advice. The situation is as follows: My DW inherited her mother's house a while back, and now that we have finally sorted out the estate and sold/donated/given away/thrown out her belongings, we are ready to sell. I decided to handle that myself, as the RE market here in the cities of Southern Germany is, frankly, crazy. It's a real seller's market. Prices increased around 8% p.a. for the last 10, 12 years. I have experience from doing a self-directed sale of our first apartment a few years back, which went extremely well.
It's a nice, rather large house on a decent-sized lot (bigger than they build them these days). The location is not A+ prime, but it is in a nice neighborhood. The house is 40 years old, though, and quite a few things are dated. Bathrooms and windows have never been renovated, for example. I have been following the RE market around here for a few years, so I think I have a decent understanding of market prices. I also used an online estimator (for a fee) that returned a number which I believe to be wayyyy too low (let's call this estimate 100,000€. In reality, it is a multiple of that. I'm not comfortable sharing exact figures here; hope you don't mind).
So we set our asking price at 126,000€. The thinking was, we would rather not go below 113,000; we'd be happy with 120,000€; so 126,000€ was really a bit of a stretch goal. I wanted to start negotiations with a price that is still somewhat realistic, but rather on the high side.
I put up an ad on the most popular German real estate website, wrote a nice exposé, put up a lot of good pictures. In the first two days, 1,600+ people read this ad, but just around 30 contacted me. A few were spammers and obvious hustlers, and I practically had to fight off real estate agents who wanted my business with a stick. One guy didn't like the exact location when I gave him the address, so I ended up arranging 11 showings so far. At first, I was very pleased with myself because I felt the asking price was low enough to still draw sufficient interest, but high enough that the field of interested parties was narrowed down to a number I can handle in addition to my other duties as an employee, husband, father, etc.
I have done eight showings so far, and the feedback I get is VERY positive.
- The first family loved it and offered 120,000€ right on the spot, even saying 'let us know if there is a better offer and we'll see what we can do'.
- At least three other parties are highly interested, but haven't given me a concrete figure yet. One of those families/couples wants a second appointment still this week, and announced that they would give me their offer then.
- I have a feeling that two more parties like the house, but disagree with me about the need for renovations. I think they will make an offer, but it will likely be quite low.
- One couple said 'it's nice, but not for us', and one couple didn't exactly seem thrilled. I don't expect to hear from them again.
I'm starting to think that the house may actually sell at or ABOVE asking price. (Yes, I'm aware that none of this is binding in any way, and it's possible that I'm getting carried away here. Could totally turn out that they all like the house, but try to low-ball me. I wouldn't mind selling to the first party for 120,000€ at all, if nothing better comes up. And of course even they could quickly change their mind.)
It's obviously a good problem to have, but has anybody been in the same situation and can share their experiences? I'm especially interested in how you handled a situation where several parties offered to buy for the asking price. Did you succeed in extracting even higher offers? If yes, how did you handle a possible bidding process? I'd rather not let this turn into an open-ended auction with 1,000€ increases, so there would need to be some kind of structured format. And I would like to keep this a sale-by-owner.
Sorry for the wall of text, and looking very much forward to any replies you might have to offer. Thank you already in advance.