A Guide to Selling Your Own Apartment

So you’ve decided to sell your apartment without a broker, huh? Well, kudos that you’re up to the challenge! We know first hand how difficult it can be (after all, it’s our job). Selling your home is never an exact science, but we wanted to offer you this brief guide to help you along the way.

Before You List It

While this prep work isn’t glamorous, it is absolutely essential to any successful transaction. You want to avoid having an offer on the table and needing to spend time backtracking to find out answers. Do your homework upfront to help yourself down the road!

• Do you have a copy of the offering plan or prospectus, by-laws and all the amendments? If not, get them from the managing agent. If the apartment requires renovation, obtain a copy of the building’s alteration agreement. Even if you don’t think it needs renovation, you should probably get it anyway.
• Do you have the last two years (at least) of the building financials? Does the building have any particular by-laws or unusual needs of buyers? Do they allow open houses and are there any specific requirements for them? Is there a flip tax and who pays it? Do you know the full extent of closing costs?
• Do you have any inclusions or exclusions? Is that chandelier coming with the apartment? That shelf on the wall? Be specific. Try to leave as much as possible as too many exclusions make buyers CRAZY!
• Storage: Do you own it? Is it transferable? Are you CERTAIN? Is there a waiting period? If so, for how long? Where is the storage space? What are the dimensions and how do you access it? Is there a cost associated with it?
• Does your building require that you contact the neighbors to tell them you’re selling? Did you notify the managing agent? Does the building require you to do so?
• Are there any issues about the apartment or building that may impact the transaction? It’s best to use full disclosure as it is your legal obligation. Though it does not guarantee an easy transaction, when addressed proactively it will help the process.
• Do you have a real estate specialized attorney on standby? Once you accept an offer, you have a ticking clock to get contracts signed. Make SURE you’re using someone who specializes in New York City Real Estate. It doesn’t matter that your second cousin from Long Island is an attorney; Manhattan transactions are in a league of their own and you need an attorney that does it every day.
• Does the property require any repairs? You want to get them done beforehand. Otherwise you may need to have it written into the contract which can spell disaster for a negotiation.

Marketing/Staging

Now that you’ve gotten all of your ducks in a row, it’s time to let the world know your home is for sale! AND, you’ll need to make sure when they walk through the door, that they love what they see.

• Hire a GREAT professional photographer. Here is an example of photographers and stagers we use vs. the previous broker on the very same property. Pictures are often the only thing someone will look at in deciding to visit or not. It’s worth the investment!

BEFORE

AFTER

• Try to identify the ONE, most important feature for your property, and place it in the opening sentence of your copy. It’s possible they may only read that one line so it is critically important. Then, try to identify the next 5–10 things that will catch the consumers eye. Use simple language: over-flourished descriptions can sound a bit desperate or grossly exaggerated. Grammar and spelling must be 100% accurate: no excuses! Use less obvious words that are highly descriptive. There are books on this subject. Study up!
• Make sure all the information you’re advertising is correct. (Taxes/common charges/sq footage, etc.) Misrepresentation, even if unintentional, can lead to problems or potential lawsuits down the road. Make sure you’ve got it right!
• Advertise on major websites: New York Times, StreetEasy, OLR, Zillow, and Trulia are the big players, though recently StreetEasy has seen a decline as the real estate community has begun pulling their syndication feeds to it. In addition to that, there are many smaller websites that you can syndicate to as well. You’re not going to see a tremendous amount of traffic from these small sites, but you need to cast your marketing net as broadly as possible.
• Don’t forget about Social Media! In addition to posting on your own personal channels, Facebook/Instagram allows highly targeting marketing campaigns which will get your in front of thousands of people who are most likely looking for properties just like yours.

After you list/Showing your property

Selling your property is a numbers game. The more potential buyers (NOT BROKERS) you can get through your door, the better. This will lead to more serious buyers. More serious buyers lead to more serious offers. More offers lead to a bidding war; and a bidding war leads to a happy seller!

• Schedule your Open Houses at least 4 days in advance. People will start to schedule their appointments a few days beforehand. Make sure that your apartment is one of the first on their list. Also, make sure that your open house time is listed on EVERY website that you’re advertising.
• Do what you can to minimize private showings. If you’ve priced your apartment correctly, you should have people breaking down your door. Create a frenzy! Everybody wants something that others can’t have.
• Know your comps (comparable apartments). Nothing is better than being able to explain why your property is so great with cold hard facts! This is where you should have found your asking price, so know your competition inside and out. Take some time to visit these apartments so you can speak fluently and confidently about the market.
• An apartment that shows EXQUISITELY sells for more and sells faster. Do you have scheduled apartment cleanings? Window cleaning? Sometimes it’s hard to see your apartment the way a stranger would. Try to remove personal objects. These items can get in the way of a potential buyers’ imagination, which is what they’ll be using when they make a decision.
• Make sure you have plenty of show sheets, and make sure the show sheets are beautiful! They should list all of the most important features of the property and they should NOT just be a paper version of the advertisement you used online. The show sheets should focus on the key components that the buyer may have missed when looking at your property originally.
• Have a sign in sheet that requires an email address. There are several apps you can use for this purpose. In the event you need to drop your price, you’ll want to email everyone that walked through the door to let them know.
• What are the best times to show? You should be presenting your apartment when it gets its best light.
• Light a candle or two. You don’t want people thinking of it as your CURRENT home, but you do want them thinking of it as their FUTURE home.
• Pay a buyer’s broker. If you intend on not using a broker in the transaction, you are cutting your pool of potential purchasers exponentially. But by paying a buyer’s broker, you will open things up a bit. With that said, it’s still far from a guarantee that an experienced broker will bring their clients to see your property, or want to do a transaction with you. This is because often times when a seller is inexperienced and not fully prepared, the buyers broker will end up doing double the work while only getting paid for one of the jobs. The chances of a deal going through also decrease in these scenarios which can make the buyers broker look bad in front of their client.
• Have a Deal Sheet prepared. Once you accept an offer, you’ll need to send this to your attorney and the purchaser’s attorney to start the contract negotiation.
• Wanting to save money is a good thing, and trying to sell your apartment on your own to eliminate the cost on a commission completely understandable! You should only pay someone if they provide value. Plain and simple. In our experience, we’ve been able to provide our sellers with higher price points that end up putting more money in their pocket at the end of the day. But everyones situation is different and we value your choice!

If you get to this point, you’re moving in the right direction. Of course, there is still a lot more time and effort required to get over the finish line. Here are some other topics to consider and learn more about:

• Negotiating and Accepting the BEST offer (warning, it’s not always the highest!)
• Putting together a board package that will actually PASS the board (You need HOW MANY original copies?!?)
• Walkthrough and closing (They didn’t seem to notice the cracked bathroom tile the first time they walked through, did they?)

The Bottom Line

There is a ton of data and research that explain the pro’s and con’s of selling a home on your own. We recommend doing the research independently and drawing your own conclusions, as ours are going to be (understandably) biased. We pride ourselves on giving true value to anyone that we come in contact with which is why we gave you this guide! Whether we end up working together formally or not, we’re happy to be a go-to resource for you, your friends, family and colleagues. Our business is built off of working with people that we care about and meeting the people that they care about through them. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We’d love to welcome you to our family!

#REALbetter