Bill G. Effros - How to Sell Your Home in 5 Days

THIRD EDITION

Copyright 1993, 1998, 2007 by William G. Effros

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproducedmechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopyingwithout written permission of the publisher. Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.

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ISBN-13: 978-0-7611-4681-0

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Printed in United States of America
First printing February 2007

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This book does not provide legal opinions or advice and does not substitute for the advice of counsel in assessing and minimizing legal risks in the sale of your home. Readers are directed to the Transferring Ownership section starting on page 215. A professional familiar with the laws affecting the sale of real estate in your state should be consulted before implementing the methods suggested.

Run the 5-Day Sale First!

I know the 5-Day Home-Selling Method is the best way to sell a home, and I also know I can convince most readers this is true. Still, I know that fewer than 50 percent of all readers of the previous two editions of this book actually used the 5-Day Method. The purpose of this Third Edition is to enable a higher percentage of readers to use this proven, risk-free, home-selling method.

Bill Effros

People frequently say that pricing a home is the hardest part of selling it.

Pricing is easy when you use the 5-Day Home-Selling Method.

The beauty of the 5-Day Method is that you never price your home at all.

Instead, you allow buyers to price your home for you. After you have found a buyer willing to pay the highest possible price, you arrange for lawyers and banks to step in and close your home in the traditional manner.

There is absolutely no risk.

You are not forced to take any price you dont want.

If you think you can do better, you are free to use any other home selling method without penalty.

The only thing that has changed is that you now know how to price your home, and you can insist that any agent, broker, or end-buyer match the amount you know you can put in your pocket just five days after you first offer your home for sale.

The 5-Day Method is a price-negotiating tool. Nothing more, nothing less. It works every time, in exactly five days, and transforms a difficult process into an easy one.

Tens of thousands of people have successfully used this method. The remainder of this book details exactly how to run a 5-Day sale.

There are always more people who want to buy homes than there are homes. Its just a question of price.

The 5-Day Home-Selling Method is the fastest, fairest, most efficient way to negotiate the price of any home. I know the 5-Day Method works, and I believe I can convince you that it will work for you. But I also know that many readers who find the book, understand it, and believe it still cant bring themselves to conduct a 5-Day sale. This Lengthy Introduction is for the unconvinced convinced.

I expect most people will skip this Lengthy Introduction, then come back to it after deciding they might try a 5-Day sale. You can also visit www.5-Day.com, where you can monitor 5-Day sales in progress, and ask sellers just like you how theyre doing and how they did it.

Now, if you want to skip the rest of this Lengthy Introduction, you may proceed directly to page 23 and come back here when you are ready.

A TRUE STORY

In 1991 I had a home in Stamford, Connecticut, that was costing me $3,000 a month.

When I asked my broker to sell it, he said the market was so bad I should wait six months. Six months and $18,000 later, he told me the market was even worse and Id better wait another six months.

But I couldnt wait another six months! That home was eating me alive, and I didnt know what to do.

I decided to run an ad just like the one on the front cover of this book. I received over 100 telephone calls, and more than 40 families came to visit my home during the two days it was open for inspection.

Five days after placing the ad, I sold my home for $271,500. I got $16,500 more than I asked and $50,000 more than my broker thought he could get. I saved $18,000 in interest and taxes, and I didnt have to pay a $16,290 commission.

I put $84,290 more into my pocket than I would have if I had followed my brokers advice.

When I first wrote this book, in the minds of most people the Internet didnt exist.

When I first wrote this book, the word auction conjured up images of James Bond in a tuxedo, waving a paddle in the direction of a friend and inadvertently buying a costly object he didnt want.

When I first wrote this book, there was no eBay.

When I first wrote this book, real estate brokers never got multiple bids for a home, and sellers tended to take the first bid they got.

When I first wrote this book, the 5-Day Method was a foreign idea to most people. (And it was, literally; I learned, long after writing the book, that most homes in Australia are sold using a similar method over a 30-day period, utilizing real estate brokers.)

The 5-Day Method is designed to obtain multiple bids. The seller then selects the most desirable bid through a Round-Robin bidding process that in some ways resembles an auction but does not require the seller to develop the skills of an auctioneer.

Lets call the Round-Robin a fair, friendly, nonbinding, competitive discussion. Because thats what it really is.

All bidders bid by telephone from their own homes. Bidders can take as much time as they want (within reason) to make their decisions.

Neither the buyer nor the seller is bound by the bid, although it is almost always the best deal either can get on that home at that time. Most buyers and most sellers recognize they have struck the best possible deal and go on to close it in the traditional manner.

5-Day sales often employ the Internet to gather buyers, but they depend mainly on face-to-face meetings between buyers and sellers and on personal inspection of the properties being offered.

ANOTHER TRUE STORY

Im often asked how I came to write this book. Im just a guy. Im not a professional author and Im not a real estate person.

Six months after selling my home in five days, I went to a college reunion. There, I bumped into the shortstop from my intramural baseball team, whom I hadnt seen in 25 years. Not knowing exactly what to say, I said, Hi, Alan, howre you earning a living?