I accepted an offer for the duplex right before I left for the conference. I wound up with six offers all of which were over 25k to 28K over my asking price. Here's what I learned:

1) I had professional pictures taken and I believe that made a big difference. This actually something that I will do for all rentals in the future. Although I didn't stage them, I plan to do so for the rentals. I feel this made all the difference in the world. Previously, I had been taking pictures with my phone. Those days are over now. Professional photos cost me only $ 150.00. There's no reason not to do them.

2) I was concerned about having a second round of negotiations once the buyer inspection was done. I wanted a waiver of inspections to avoid that but wanted to find a way to make that compelling. Brad had recommended a couple of youtube videos from realtors on preparing a house for sale and one of them mentioned the seller getting a home inspection and that's precisely what I did. This cost me $ 600.00 and created a level of transparency where buyers knew about any issues and it also let me know about any issues. As it turned out, all issues were minor and I felt that made the buyers comfortable with waiving inspections. This will be a standard thing I'll do with any future sales and it eliminates the games around trying to negotiate the price again using the inspection report.

3) I arranged showings around open houses and didn't allow lockbox showings. I had two offers come in from folks who didn't bother to come to the open houses. To encourage this, I set up a shareable google drive that had pictures, the home inspection report, proforma P & L, the city certificate of occupancy, city inspection report and etc. Every realtor who called received this link. That avoided me running around with a bunch of paper at the open house while providing them full information. It also avoided a lot of unnecessary conversation as all questions were answered once they accessed the shared drive. I felt this was quite effective in facilitating the sale and maxing the sales price.

4) My place is part of a twin with a duplex on the other side as well. My neighbor had sold his place the month prior and I wound up selling mine for 16K more and his place was actually better outfitted in the bathroom in particular. He had a realtor and I just had me.

Actually, I found I rather enjoyed the process. I still have one hurdle to deal with waiting on the mortgage commitment. There's always the possibility that could fall through. Hopefully, this thing is done after the 1st of July and I'm on to other stuff.

So what you are saying is that I still have a chance to buy the place?

The picture idea is an excellent one. When we find another plot of land and build I will have pro pics taken of this dump. Maybe by then I will have figured out the nuances of it.

I did not have a home inspection done. It might have helped out. I sold mine cheaper than I should have and put in the listing I was selling it as is where is so I would be doing nothing additional to the property. This was for my PR.

Did have the septic inspected prior tho. There are about four companies in the area that do that. Two of which I do not trust. One I have not worked with and the last does all my work. That made the buyers happy.

Years back I had a flip to sell. Company came out and inspected the septic. All was fine. I got the paperwork on it. Those people backed out because of a conflict among themselves. Less than a week later another inspection by the same company for a friend of theirs. This time the septic failed.

Told my realtor that the deal was off the table. We simply faxed (or emailed?) the report with the date on it. Never heard from them again and the house sold. Not that it matters but I will never accept anything from that company.

I am lazy so I doubt I would have gone the open house direction. I also sold mine thru a realtor (refer back to lazy). I really like the idea of having a google drive set up with all the information on it. I could probably do that with my cheesy website as well.

Good pictures make good ads.

Gman,

Great to meet you at Convention!

I really enjoyed your session about shared housing.

CONGRATS on the price and NO COMMISSION!! That's HUGE!

For the home inspection I have the inspector take a look and WE write down anything that needs attention. Saves him a ton of time at the house, not slowed taking pics, and he does not have to do a lengthy report.

We fix those things and he comes back to check - a quick trip. THEN he writes his report and it says ALL CLEAR.

I also ask for the realtor discount.

I like your idea of having those docs online for agents.

Keep on keepin on!

BRAD

Brad, I enjoyed your presentation as well. You're a very good speaker.

I learned a few things myself in that round table. As I mentioned, my place is licensed and falls under hotel laws as a result which puts me outside of LL/Tenant. The downside about that is that getting another place would be very expensive as it's valued similar to how commercial property gets valued. There were a couple of guys there running these out of a regular SFH which you can do depending the town's limits on the number of unrelated people allowed to live together. It never occurred to me to get one of these places which would be FAR CHEAPER. I guess my fear was running an "unlicensed" rooming house. I plan on taking a look at it.