What do you wish you'd known before selling?

Our place has been on and off the market a few times for various reasons. In that time SE re-designed its site so it's now difficult for buyers to make direct contact with the seller or seller broker. This has absolutely disabled our interest levels and geometrically decreased the amount of traffic in general. As a result, we are again considering subletting rather than selling.
I would suggest making sure there's a trace to an alternate contact strategy given within the text of the listing, If you have a broker, I would see if they can also get a secondary link to their site put below the views count (as I've seen it.) If you are offering a buyer broker commission make sure it's in the database. I'm working with a smaller discount brokerage, and I'm still fielding questions about whether a buyer broker will receive a commission.

That said, I'm critical of the 5-6% brokerage commission model. I feel that those of us able and electing to do so should be able to buy and sell our units ourselves, under the conditions we want. It's clear to me that the industry is trying to lock that up.

My experiences with full service agents has been generally quite awful. It seems they get carried away with arguing for their own interests and terms, doing price cuts because they're impatient, using bullying and reckless strategies to force down a sale that isn't working, and not getting the number of offers we get when doing the showings. There's also all kinds of emotional baggage hidden under this aggressive professionalism coupled with their fears of being sued over admitting to a mistake. This makes for some toxic interactions. That said, I can absolutely see going this route if I didn't have the time to do open houses or was out of town, or had severe social anxiety and so forth, but I don't think it should be the industry standard.
Good luck!

@David, for a real estate broker to put their contact info in the body of the listing is against the standards of our trade association (REBNY, which covers most of the firms that you've heard of).

@rollindoh, let's see... I've been selling co-ops for ten years as a broker and have sold two (using a broker) as a principal. The things that are helpful to know going in are: How long is it going to take, what's it going to cost, what's the experience going to be like?

You can get a good fix on a) by reaching out to a board member and getting a sense of how often the board meets and what the timeline has been on previous deals. You want to be a little cautious with this relationship, because you don't want them to just say "oh, call the managing agent," but learning, say, if the board meets only once a month or meets at will can be helpful. Sometimes boards have one particular point person in charge of resales who will talk to you.

For b) you are obviously going to be concerned about brokerage commission, but you also want to know building fees (many co-ops have a flip tax, for instance) and also when you talk to brokers you'll want to see if they think your place needs pre-sale renovation, which they're going to want you to bear the cost of ... under the theory you'll get it back. Different brokers may recommend different things, and that's where part of the fun is.

For c) you'll want to check with your managing agent to see if open houses are allowed and if so when -- nothing worse than a seller who expects showings 24/7 in a building that wants to compress you to 10-2 on Sundays. A trusted real estate attorney can be helpful here too, to walk you through the co-op process. Things that surprise sellers often are: lack of understanding of the speed of the markets, mortgage lenders expecting prior renovations needing to be caught up to code, and the extent to which seller's broker wants the place to look "different." I had a neighbor in my building who ended up throwing odds and ends of junk into her car right before every open house.

ali r.
{upstairs realty}

I have bought and sold many properties. What had changed since the real estate fiasco, is that the banks need 1 to 2 weeks before closing to recheck the financials for the mortgage for your buyer. We had a difficult buyer who said that was not so.

We were ready to go to closing at the beginning of August and our buyer decided not to close because he was taking a month long vacation abroad. He also said that he was such a good customer at his bank that they would waive rechecking his financials. NOT SO. When he returned, they expedited rechecking his financials and it took a week. Then he found out the closing date he wanted was beyond his pre-approval for his mortage. So they charged him for extending the pre-approval date and he wanted us to pay for that. He could have closed earlier and waived the fee, but he wanted his wife present at the closing. She was not available within the time frame.

Bottom Line: We didn't close until the end of September.

Lots of great advice here. Let me offer and reinforce a few suggestions from my personal experience:

1. Try to insure that you have a buyer who is dedicated to a timely closing as they can otherwise be a nightmare throughout the board approval and closing process. Not easy to do best to find a buyer who is as equally motivated as the seller.

2. Try to pick a buyer (or broker/closing counsel) who is experienced with NYC coops. I had an agreed price with a couple from Florida who did not have a local broker and was using a FL attorney who thought they could make all kinds of demands of me and my board especially regarding their financial disclosure. I set them straight and dropped them which my board appreciated.

3. Remember that a coop buyer can basically terminate the agreement without penalty if board does not approve. This gives buyer a second chance to get out of the deal if they want.

4. Try to verify if any work done to your apt. has all approvals documented. If that is not the case, negotiations could get tricky especially if contract has to be amended after it goes out.

5. Make sure that your broker works carefully on the board package and does not let the buyer broker, if any, run the entire process. When I send out a purchase contract, I make sure it indicates that buyer must fully cooperate with seller in the approval process.

6. If you are willing to sell to a buyer seeking financing, give buyer 2 months to get it done but try to avoid allowing a full mortgage contingency. In other words, if buyer does not obtain financing, they must close regardless or pay default penalties. I have used this when a buyer says they can close all-cash but simply prefer to finance.

If this is not possible, at a minimum I would recommend requiring buyer to show a full mortgage commitment subject only to appraisal and updated credit review. Also, I would not let them out of deal if appraisal is less than purchase price. Rather, I would only let them out of deal if loan to appraised value is greater than say 75%.

7. This is common sense (and your broker will hopefully make sure of it) but before accepting any offer, get a REBNY financial disclosure from buyer and have you and your broker review it for completeness.

8. If you have a good relationship with a coop board member, try to discuss offers you are considering as they may be willing to give you some advice on what they are looking for. Some unofficial rules about buyer net worth, income, etc. could be useful when evaluating a buyer's likelihood of board approval.

9. Before accepting any offer, make sure that you know whether buyer is represented by an agent. Again, your broker should be fully on top of this for you but always good to confirm.

10. Make sure that you bone up on coop rules regarding sales process especially flip taxes and who pays, board requirements and closing timelines. Get a copy of the coop board package, give to your broker and make sure that you both read it carefully.

11. In marketing the apt. make sure it is very well staged, uncluttered, and have good photos taken buy a professional. Look at other existing and closed listings in your building to see how they were represented.

I am not an attorney or an experienced broker so please take these recommendations with a grain of salt. Some of this advice may not be practical or needed in your situation. Also, if any experienced brokers disagree with my points, please set me straight.

>>>Then he found out the closing date he wanted was beyond his pre-approval for his mortage. So they charged him for extending the pre-approval date and he wanted us to pay for that. <<

Jelj--that's some chutzpah right there--hope you didn't give in!

>> Remember that a coop buyer can basically terminate the agreement without penalty if board does not approve. This gives buyer a second chance to get out of the deal if they want.<<

ximon--not necessarily. If a seller can successfully make a case the buyer purposely tried to 'throw' the interview or other elements of application process (breach of contract) then the seller may be able to keep the deposit. Once that contract is signed and your deposit is in cold feet are not an option.