Selling a condo without a broker

Hi,

I sold my condo on my own. I had tried a broker but found that I had as much success without one. I evaluated the comps in my building and the neighborhood when establishing the price, took some great pictures and advertised on the New York Times. You do need to have some time to field phone calls and show the apartment. I found without a broker, I had a lot more room for negotiation. In this market, negotiation is key.

I am a real estate agent and my feeling is that if you're a seller who would be happy doing it on your own, then bless you.

You should, however, expect to spend a couple thousand dollars in marketing costs. A professional photographer (yes, you need one) will cost you a few hundred, and a nice-looking website for the property (optional, but if you don't have time during the weekdays, it will give you a place to point callers to to answer their questions) will cost a few hundred. The rest is money you should spend on web and possibly print advertising.

Remember it is not 2006, so try to price your condo accordingly. We are in the hot season now, so if you are not getting decent traffic after your apartment has been available for two weeks, that is a pricing signal and you need to come down in price and start again.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

i am currently selling my condo without a broker. if/when i find a buyer, what do i have to do? where do i get a contract for the sale, how do i take care of the closing, etc.? i am sure there are a lot of things to be done. are these things all handled by a real estate lawyer?

I disagree in part and agree in part. The part I disagree with ali r. about is the "professional photographer." For some people, yes, this is important if all you have is a point and shoot camera that you use only on your kids birthdays. If, however, you or a friend are comfortable with a digital SLR and photoshop and have a good wide-angle lens, then you absolutely don't need a pro. I am a photo hobby-ist and took great photos of my apt after staging it (basically removing all clutter--small items look crappy in photos). Use a tripod and combine different exposures of the same shot so that windows are not overexposed (unless the view outside is awful, in which case go ahead and overexpose). The point is, yes, the photos are very important, but a decent amateur can get the pix right without spending on a pro. If you want more info on this, start a thread on "How to photograph your apt" and I'll happily contribute.

What I agree with ali r. on is the time you will be devoting to the process (possibly weeks of Sunday open houses) and as matingritual points out, you'll have to deal with all the paperwork yourself. Knowing what is "standard practice" and what is outside the norm will be important info for you to have. If you aren't a lawyer or very familiar with this process, it may be difficult. You may also be assisting the buyer in preparing the application and if you don't know what you are doing, that could jeopardize the sale in the end (although admittedly less difficult for a condo than a coop).

One savvy lawyer friend of mine tried to sell on his own on West 58th St. in a good building, and after 3 months of missteps and no sale and expenditures for advertising and lost Sundays, he hired a broker. His efforts amounted to a complete waste of his time and delay in sale while the market conditions overall deteriorated. There are success stories, but be aware of the downside risks.

If you have a really good lawyer, which I did, he can take care of the contract as well as advise you on any other issues. With a condo, the rest of the paperwork is pretty simple. I found that advertising on-line on the New York times ( $125/2weeks ) gave me great exposure. We also posted an ad in our building. Both my husband and I took great digital photo's which we made look even better through photoshop. People would comment on how great the photo's were ( no professional photo's needed ). It tooks us about 3 months to sell, which is probably about average in this market.

matingritual --

you can sell without a real estate agent (at least as far as this agent is concerned) but you really shouldn't sell without an attorney. He/she will use a boilerplate contract, but can personalize it to your situation and read you the parts you might want to scratch out. Get EAO's lawyer if you don't have anybody else.

Another thing you should be doing is contacting the building's managing agent and asking them for their sales paperwork. Your board probably has a right of first refusal, so when you sell you have to submit something to them saying, "I have an offer to sell unit XX to buyer YY for $ZZ, would you all like to exercise your right of first refusal and buy it instead?"

Most boards won't, but it's a hoop to be jumped through.

kylewest and EAO -- I am sure you are both great photogs (the fact that you both feel proficient in photoshop puts you ahead of many hobbyists already in my book) but I'm still going to disagree with you about the photos. One thing a pro has that you don't are subsidiary lights, and I think rooms that have more than one light source in them look more sales-ready than anything an amateur -- even with a good SLR -- can probably take.

ali r.
{downtown broker}