We learned about the 5-day home-selling method from the book “How to Sell Your Home in 5 Days”, by Bill Effros. After picking up the book in a bookstore, reading a couple of chapters and skimming the rest, we brought it home and read it immediately. An open round-robin bidding process made perfect sense to us. Soon afterwards, we discovered that one of our friends was also familiar with it; a friend of his had sold his house in five days a few years before in a down market. We sold our first house by this method in 2001.
We plan to sell our home for the best offer through an open, friendly and honest round-robin bidding process on Sunday night, after the two-day inspection.
We decided on this process because it allows the market to set a price that will be fair to both the seller and the buyer. It also provides a fast schedule and lets us choose the time. The traditional selling method of starting from a high asking price and slowly coming down to a fair price can drag on for weeks and months. In a 5-day sale, a qualified highest bidder can move into a new home as soon as he or she can close.
This is the bidding process:
Only buyers who have seen the home may bid on it.
Bids may be left at any time prior to 4:00 pm Sunday evening.
No one can enter the bidding after 4:00pm Sunday evening.
The bidding will be open. We will tell anyone the status of the bids at any time.
The home will be sold to the highest bidder in round-robin bidding on Sunday night, starting at 7:00pm.
The highest bidder prior to the round-robin bidding will have the opportunity to make the first bid when the final bidding begins. The next highest bidder will get the second call, and so on down the list.
Every bidder will have the opportunity to top the high bid until the highest bidder is established.
If there is more than one bid at the same level, the earliest bid will be honored.
Bids must be at least $500 apart (e.g. $200,000; $200,500; $201,000; etc.) and in $500 increments (e.g. $500; $1,000; $1,500; etc.)
The highest bidder will be offered the home at the bid price, on the condition of the owners' acceptance.