Private Sale in Maplewood?

Is there any one there who want to sell their home but doesn't want to deal with the rigors of selling, staging, fixing up, cleaning up and just do a straight, private sale. 

Here are the requirements: 
3 or 4 beds
2 baths
Basement either fully or partially finished
Open floor plan or potential for 
Zoned for either Tuscan or Jefferson 

I'm posting for a friend who is at his wits end trying to purchase a home. He and his wife are active members of the community who have been renting for years, but want to buy. They have a nice amount of money, but keep getting out bid. Just trying to help them out.

Please send me a direct message if interested. 

Thank you.

Do you know why they wouldn't be looking in South Orange as well as Maplewood, and why they don't expand their search to any of the other perfectly wonderful school zones?  

Are they aware that "Jefferson" zone is actually a Marshall/Jefferson pairing... and Marshall is in South Orange?

Why question their decision?  If they've been renting locally for years and are active members of the community, it stands to reason they know where they want to live and why (and that SO is next door for that matter), and shouldn't have to justify it, yes?  

Cleo- I know of one longshot in the Tuscan area, and will advise here if they decide to move on.

Not trying to question their decision as much as address "who is at his wits end trying to purchase a home". 

If you're just going to restrict yourself to the same reduced scope as all the Brooklyn-ites who don't know any better, you're going to get to your wits end trying to purchase a home. 

cleo26r said:

... They have a nice amount of money, but keep getting out bid. 

Sounds like they're trying to get a below-market deal.  

I wouldn't expect too many takers on the offer for a private sale.  It is against the seller's financial interests to do so.

At 5% commission on a house of $500k is a $25,000 savings for the seller which may be enough for the buyer to exceed the price that a buyer from a realtor could get for the same house.  On the other hand both parties would be taking on a very big hassle as the transaction itself is frought with legalities and inspections which are not necessarily conducted in good faith.  If the seller is considering this option I recommend that all concerned get the best lawyer in the market place, well, even if you get a realtor get the best lawyer that money cand find.  It is money well spent.  I speak from experience.

jimmurphy said:

cleo26r said:

... They have a nice amount of money, but keep getting out bid. 

Sounds like they're trying to get a below-market deal.  

I wouldn't expect too many takers on the offer for a private sale.  It is against the seller's financial interests to do so

The Hillcrest section of Maplewood is zoned for Marshall/Jefferson...at least 3-4 houses are on the market in that area.

New Hillcrest Listings:

http://www.weichert.com/63666426/

http://www.weichert.com/63763222/

The sellers on a house down the street from me listed their house on Zillow and sold it for more than $200K over asking.

Copihue said:

At 5% commission on a house of $500k is a $25,000 savings for the seller which may be enough for the buyer to exceed the price that a buyer from a realtor could get for the same house. 

But it's pretty hard to be sure what a realtor can get for the house these days.  

lhmirman said:

The sellers on a house down the street from me listed their house on Zillow and sold it for more than $200K over asking.

We had a similar experience selling our Maplewood house last June (though not quite that much over asking).

agreed - I think you have to look at comps in the area and try to gauge as best as possible. Does Zillow charge to list a house? 

I would only do something like this as a no-contingency deal. If you put your house on the market, you're likely to have several other offers to go back to if your first deal falls through for whatever reason. If I'm not going to have that, I want to make sure there aren't any issues that scuttle the deal. 

Apart from the commission you have to factor in the cost of what is recommended by realtors when you plan to sell your home.  Painting, minor repairs, de-cluttering and in some cases re-decorating.  The costs can add up.

We sold our home a couple of years ago and hired someone to stage it.  The work she did prompted our realtor to bump up our asking price considerably more than the cost of the staging, letting us put down a much higher down payment on our current house.  We did put in a ton of sweat equity into the staging process (filling a POD on our own, moving a lot of our own furniture around, painting my basement floor etc.) to keep the cost of the staging under control.

But the market is hot right now and you'd have to make a pretty compelling offer to most people to convince them not to list their house and see what the market will bear.  I don't know what I would have done if someone had come along and offered me the original (pre-staging) asking price in a private sale which rescued me from two straight months of late nights and sore muscles.  But I do know that even factoring everything in I would have ended up with less than I did putting my house on the market. 

My point in all this is I don't know how you convince someone it's worth just taking an offer without testing the waters first.

Agreed.

imonlysleeping said:

I would only do something like this as a no-contingency deal. If you put your house on the market, you're likely to have several other offers to go back to if your first deal falls through for whatever reason. If I'm not going to have that, I want to make sure there aren't any issues that scuttle the deal. 

To me, it would depend on the purpose of the contingency and its duration. A few weeks is one thing. Beyond 60 or 90 days, its called, "rent-to-own" and it costs.

I mean I would sell the house "as is," no financing contingency, etc. The burden is very much on the buyer here to make this worth my while. I would not do a deal like this if there was a chance it would fall apart after their inspection or whatever. 

But the real issue here seems to be that the OP's friends are bidding on houses they can't afford. They should go after more modest homes and make higher offers. 

Formerlyjerseyjack said:

imonlysleeping said:

I would only do something like this as a no-contingency deal. If you put your house on the market, you're likely to have several other offers to go back to if your first deal falls through for whatever reason. If I'm not going to have that, I want to make sure there aren't any issues that scuttle the deal. 

To me, it would depend on the purpose of the contingency and its duration. A few weeks is one thing. Beyond 60 or 90 days, its called, "rent-to-own" and it costs.

but keep getting out bid.

If they keep getting outbid then any supposed savings the private seller would benefit from would just be passed back to the private buyer via their under bid, while creating more work, stress. and risk for the seller. I have no love for real estate agents but the people I've met who privately sell their homes could be charitably be called fiercely independent at best and cranks at worst. To try to recruit someone to lose leverage like that is disingenuous, this is one of those time periods where even the most inept agent is justifying her 5% and might be generating incremental interest or overbids in excess of her fee.

Lately I get the felling we're in the midst of another local housing bubble, or at least a severe peak. A house in our former neighborhood listed for 20% higher than our 2013 sale of a similar house. There was apparently a huge bidding war to bring it well above asking. 

I  find myself wondering how much of this is fueled by the insane real Estate market in NY City where foreign funds are driving over development of Manhattan. Formerly moderate and low cost neighborhoods like Hell's Kitchen are getting torn down for massive high rise condos which are being bought and left vacant by investors from overseas. People are scrambling to find homes close to NYC they can afford so the supply dwindles, prices skyrocket and a lot of folks get priced out of a community.

I really wonder what happens if all that foreign capital ever dries up. It might be a good time to have some money in the bank to buy a house.

This listing is near Jefferson and has been on the market for some time.  You didn't specify price range, but this one hasn't resulted in a bidding war.

http://www.weichert.com/61653853/

(edited to add that it's been on the market for a while)

There is also a house on the northwest corner of Jefferson Avenue and Walton Avenue that still has a for sale sign up.  I can't locate the link to it, but I recall that it did not seem to be over priced.  

Interesting listing, lah. On the larger end of the spectrum (6 BR, 3 BA).  There have been a couple of higher end houses in my neighborhood in South Orange which ended up selling but only after cutting their asking price.  One (8 BR, 7 BA) listed in June 2015 at $1.45M but didn't sell til recently at $995K. Another 6BR/6BA place listed at $1.75M and looks like it's pending a sale at $1.49M.  

So while it seems like the housing crash of 2007 has recovered for smaller and mid-size houses (like what the OP is looking for) but maybe not for the larger homes.

mrincredible said:

Lately I get the felling we're in the midst of another local housing bubble, or at least a severe peak. A house in our former neighborhood listed for 20% higher than our 2013 sale of a similar house. There was apparently a huge bidding war to bring it well above asking. 

I  find myself wondering how much of this is fueled by the insane real Estate market in NY City where foreign funds are driving over development of Manhattan. Formerly moderate and low cost neighborhoods like Hell's Kitchen are getting torn down for massive high rise condos which are being bought and left vacant by investors from overseas. People are scrambling to find homes close to NYC they can afford so the supply dwindles, prices skyrocket and a lot of folks get priced out of a community.

I really wonder what happens if all that foreign capital ever dries up. It might be a good time to have some money in the bank to buy a house.

I agree. A rather small house not far from us sold for 40% (yes that is correct, 39.25% to be exact) more a couple of months ago than it sold at the end of 2011. We know this house because a former friend owned it. The house had some improvements but same size, so hard to justify the highly increased price tag except for a serious bubble going on. 

mrincredible said:

Lately I get the felling we're in the midst of another local housing bubble, or at least a severe peak. A house in our former neighborhood listed for 20% higher than our 2013 sale of a similar house. There was apparently a huge bidding war to bring it well above asking. 

I  find myself wondering how much of this is fueled by the insane real Estate market in NY City where foreign funds are driving over development of Manhattan. Formerly moderate and low cost neighborhoods like Hell's Kitchen are getting torn down for massive high rise condos which are being bought and left vacant by investors from overseas. People are scrambling to find homes close to NYC they can afford so the supply dwindles, prices skyrocket and a lot of folks get priced out of a community.

I really wonder what happens if all that foreign capital ever dries up. It might be a good time to have some money in the bank to buy a house.

In fact, there's a recent article in the Washington Post about lessening demand at the top of the Manhattan housing market specifically because foreign capital is drying up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/big-apple-real-estate-market-softens-at-the-top/2016/05/11/765e8436-0b23-11e6-bfa1-4efa856caf2a_story.html

...

The glut arrives amid a thinning of foreign buyers, long a primary engine of Manhattan’s luxury sector. The decline is being fueled by a stronger U.S. dollar, lower oil prices and economic slowdowns in emerging markets such as China and Brazil, says Jonathan Miller, of Miller Samuel. While foreigners account for about 15 percent of total Manhattan sales, they make up about 30 percent of high-end condo purchases, Miller says.
Another factor sending shudders through the upper echelons of Manhattan’s real estate market is the Treasury Department’s new rules on identifying and tracking secret buyers of expensive properties.
Concerned about illicit money flowing into luxury real estate, the department is now requiring title insurers to send the government the names of the owners behind limited liability companies on residential transactions valued at $3 million or more in New York.

...

lah said:

This listing is near Jefferson and has been on the market for some time.  You didn't specify price range, but this one hasn't resulted in a bidding war.

http://www.weichert.com/61653853/

(edited to add that it's been on the market for a while)

Whoa!  Looks like that house has good bones, but I'm guessing there's a lot of deferred maintenance.  No pics of kitchen or baths is a warning sign, too.  

@mbaldwin I haven't been inside, but I agree that it's likely that there is work to do because it has been on the market a while and it has somewhat frequent Sunday open houses.  The pictures suggest that it is not staged either.

look up the history of the house down the street at 403 W End

Listed for $799  then Northfield bought it for $335 flipped and resold for $843 

mbaldwin said:

lah said:

This listing is near Jefferson and has been on the market for some time.  You didn't specify price range, but this one hasn't resulted in a bidding war.

http://www.weichert.com/61653853/

(edited to add that it's been on the market for a while)

Whoa!  Looks like that house has good bones, but I'm guessing there's a lot of deferred maintenance.  No pics of kitchen or baths is a warning sign, too.  

look up the history of the house down the street at 403 W End
Listed for $799  then Northfield bought it for $335 flipped and resold for $843