How to sell a property when the majority of your competitions is Bank owned property~

My mother in law and father in law always had a dream of owning a home.

They have worked so hard their entire lives and in the mid 80's they bought a vacation home in the Poconos in Pennsylvania.

The house was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath and it brought them so much joy of ownership and thousands of happy memories.

In the last few years, the Poconos got hit hard with foreclosures and the secondary housing market dried up.

My mother in law decided that she wanted to sell, but needed Mr. and Mrs. Z's New York City Real Estate experience to help them with a successful sale.

Carolyn and I interviewed a bunch of local agents and were given a pretty wide spread on pricing and marketing strategies and no one really seemed to be that interested in selling the property.

We finally met an agent with a New York City attitude and work ethic.

We enlisted her services because of her web presence, quick response time and list price for the house.

We also hired a stager that removed 80% of my in laws furniture and put in more modern items.

We painted the interior, put in a new water heater, got rid of the years of "Stuff" accumulation and put it on the market.

The property was on the market for 1 Day, we were in contract 2 days later at 97.5% of the ask and we closed 2 weeks later.

We also hired an attorney (most deals in the Poconos don't use attorneys) but we had our New York mind set on!

If we had gone with one of the other agents that we interviewed, we would have left $25,000 on the table.

The bottom line is that anything can sell in any market!

Tips:

Assemble a great team~

Hire a professional Real Estate Agent that understands pricing, time of the essence and who has a fiduciary responsibility to the seller!

We used Bev Waring- she is a superstar

http://www.bevwaring.com/Realty_Executives/page_914784.html

Hire a stager who has style and who is mindful of your budget.

We used and loved:

Valerie Sagheddu

Apostle Art Home Staging & Design

www.apostleart.com

570-972-7939

Hire a lawyer- remember you get what you pay for....don't be cheap!

Hire a Mortgage Broker who understands your market and gets you the best loan product for your sale.

The entire process was a joy, but if we did not use our New York real estate savvy, that house could have been on the market for 1-2 years and that would have been a disaster!