How to Sell Your Home in 5 Days

Rating:
Summary: Worked great for me! Highly recommended!
Review: I used the first edition of this book to sell my parents' home in less than a week for the same money that their neighbors received for an identical house.

It took the neighbors a year and lots of time and money "fixing things up." They used two different brokers (each of whom lost interest when the house didn't 'move' quickly) and suffered a bunch of anxiety (due to illnesses, moving, etc.)

We spent five days in the active sales phase, had 200 people through to see our house in a weekend and had hot competitive bidding right down to the wire.

The book was well written and easy to use. Although the prospect of selling the house ourselves was a bit scary, the inexorable logic of the market place worked just as Bill described.

Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: Got a minute, sell your house
Review: I'm still looking for the "Readers Digest Large Print" seal of approval on the cover. This book could have been a pamphlet or at most a 'pocket' book, lots of white space. It would have been nice to see this book before purchase but then, I would have read it already! I guess all those blank, or nearly blank, pages are there for you to keep notes. --John

Rating:
Summary: I Sold My House in Five Days
Review: It isn't every day that a book can save your hide, or change your life, but William G. Effros' "How to Sell Your Home in Five Days" did both for me. My wife and I owned a home in Maine. We needed to move to Massachusetts for work and were unemployed. Our house had been on the market for NINE MONTHS with brokers and no real offers. After reading the book, we followed the directions to the letter, and did what our lawyer said was impossible: Sold our house, and at a fair-market price. After the sale the lawyer could not believe how well the it had worked, and the price we got for our house. He graciously admitted that he had been wrong, and said that he had never seen anything like it. We must be geniuses. I told him to read the book. IT WORKS!!! If anyone has any question about how to do it you can call me (Tim Hunter) at [phone] or [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Concise Confidence builder for the do-it-yourselfer
Review: It took me approximately 1 1/2 hours to whip through "How to Sell Your Home in 5 Days", and as I finished each page, I kept thinking, "Yes!"

I feel like I've found the Holy Grail of success against one of the most mystifying, anxiety producing, dollar-gulping practices the average American will ever participate in-Selling a home through a broker.

Bill Effros does a fantastic job of laying out the steps to actually selling one's home, at market price in only five days. His book is believable, and why not? He's writing from personal experience; as someone who never did it before- just like you and I.

In short, he's managed to provoke the ultimate in reader comprehension: Slapping the palm of one's hand to the forehead as you exclaim, "Why didn't I think of that!"

Rating:
Summary: Think twice--really bad experience with process
Review: My husband and I thought this book made a lot of sense and decided we would sell our home this way. It was the worst weekend of my life! The book tells you that "your price can't be too low" as in the lower the better. Mr. Effros tells you to price it between $25K and $50K below what you think it should sell for. He also says that $50K is best. That is exactly what we did. Well, we were very busy for the open house. Very busy with people who couldn't afford a home in our neighborhood! It was an exhausting waste of time. One of my friends who was with me during the weekend said it was like inviting a large group of people over to insult you with bids $50K below what your house is worth. My home is located in a very "hot" neighborhood of $140-$180K homes, in FL. Think twice before following the advice of this book. If you go for it, then start the bids closer to what you think you will get for your home. By the way, I was a little alarmed after I read the section in the book where he discusses how he came to write the book. It sounds like he sold his house this way and then met up with an old classmate who writes "how to" books. His friend thought it would make a great book. Kind of scary to put your most valuable asset in the hands of such limited expertise.

Rating:
Summary: I Tried It and Failed!
Review: My wife and I bought this book and tried following it to the letter but ran into lots of unexpected hurtles. The book is an easy read but desperately needs to be updated. It states that advertising on the Internet is not necessary and that is just a completely outdated thought. The ad he tells you to put in the paper won't fit in our local papers, but nonetheless we came up with a solution and worked through the process. TO avoid legal problems of disclosure, we did work with our attorney. We learned a great deal and will try it again in the future now that we feel more comfortable, however WE FAILED! We never reached our reserve! :-(

I spent $2,000 advertised in 2 Bay Area papers, on eBay, on a local community web site, working with our attorney and even put banners over our local freeways. It all resulted in 70 people calling us by Friday night, 40 people coming by our house and 13 people making bids. We had 6 rounds of bidding but never reached our LOW reserve. The problem was that the people reading the paper and looking on eBay are bargain hunters, not actual homebuyers in the Bay Area. Here in Silicon Valley, everyone is working 60-80 hour weeks and they have no time to look in the paper for a house. Instead they tell their realtor to call them when something new comes up. These are the serious buyers with money. It didn't help that our house was not centrally located in a metropolitan location. I can see this working INCREDIBLY well in a desirable neighborhood in San Jose or in downtown Santa Cruz.

As for us, as our backup plan, we listed with a realtor and have 4 offers to choose from marked up 20% over our asking price.


Rating:
Summary: The title is correct, it works!
Review: Sold my house in 5 days, in a down market for $40,000 above what brokers told me it was worth. So, the proof is in the pudding. Yes, you need to have a set of balls to sell a house this way, it is so unheard of to not use a broker, but the savings are all yours. I figured, what have I got to lose.... well now I can tell you what I have to gain. It is a bit of work, but I was able to sell my house quicker than a broker could. It seemed that brokers only need to sell a house, not your house. So, the brokers really don't care if they sell yours or your neighbors. Well, I wanted it to be mine. Buy this book and be done with it in a week!

Rating:
Summary: How to Sell Your Home in 5 Days
Review: Terrible advice. Word to the wise. Follow generally accepted advise for selling your home. Most people are unfamiliar, and therefore wary, (with good reason) with this "technique" and you end up spending most of your time explaining your "method". I wasted good money on a bad ad (following the book's advice) and wasted too much time trying to enlighten my potential buyers. Once I dropped this method and went back to tried and true real estate selling, i.e place well written ads for weekend running only and put up signs, lots of them, I was able to sell my home in just two weeks. By the way, it wasn't the ads that sold it, just a well placed sign.

Rating:
Summary: DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS BOOK!!!!
Review: The advice in this book SUCKS! Before I bought, read and attempted this "new idea", I came and read the reviews posted on this website. I saw more positive reviews than negative so I figured that it was just negative people writing the bad ones. No, they were probably the only ones that are not personal friends with the author.

I had my property listed at $60,000 below market value. Because my local paper was running a special, I had my ad in the paper for over two weeks. In that two weeks, I had only 19 people call about the ad. And the majority of them were investors looking for a good deal thinking that they were going to get a great place at next to nothing.

Again, DO NOT waste your money on this book. It is like taking that money and flushing it down the toilet with the rest of the crap. Caveat Emptor!!!

Rating:
Summary: Read with caution
Review: This book is interesting--however, I notice that none of the reviews (at least those with places listed) seem to be from states like California that have serious mandatory disclosure laws. It would be much harder to use this method out there, except in maybe a very hot market. You might be better off working out a lowered commission with your broker/agent if you bring a buyer in. Some agents will make sure you have the necessary forms for a couple hundred dollars, as long as they aren't actually "doing" the sale. Nolo Press also puts out many good books on buying/selling homes.

This is not to bash agents, I have used a couple of very good ones, but in the really hot markets, you don't need an agent, you just need to be honest in your disclosures.

He also doesn't seem to allow much time for people to walk through the house in relative peace and quiet, so you're kind of bidding blind, like at a government auction, whereas with an agent/lockbox, you can go back more than once to see the house before making an offer. This is not so much of a problem if you are looking for a house in the same general area as where you live, but if you are from out of town with limited time this puts a lot of pressure on you. This type of advertising is also obviously directed at your local newspaper population, so without an agent you might miss a buyer from out of the area. Also, how do you handle inspection contingencies, and so on? What if a bidder brings a buyers' agent? Are you going to tell them that they're responsible for that agent's commission?

Selling/Buying a house should be a win-win situation, where both buyer and seller feel good about the transaction--this book leaves too many questions unanswered. Borrow before buying.