In early 2019, after decades in Pennsylvania, we planned a retirement move to Colorado. John Herreid had been a patient of Doctor Shank’s for several years. He had gotten to know him in that capacity and had formed a positive sense of his capabilities and his personal and professional ethics. We selected John to be our listing agent, partially on that basis. We also selected him because we felt his Internet Marketing program and processes were the best in the area. Specifically, as part of his regular service, he provided a virtual property tour (which is present in only 10% of the houses on the market), developed an individual web site just for our house, advertised our house on over 250 real estate web sites and provided professional photography.
The house went on the market on February 4 for $650,000. Within 3 days, John’s marketing produced 3 competitive offers. All were for less than the listing price. John recommended that he go back to all three agents, tell them that we had 3 similar offers and ask them to submit their best and final 24 hours later. Each of the agents did come back with an increased offer. John then prepared a spreadsheet that summarized all of the offers in an easy to understand framework. One of the offers John negotiated was for the full price of $650,000. We signed the final Agreement of Sale on February 11 which was only 8 days after the house initially went on the market.
During this time in Thornbury Township, the average days on market for houses sold was 105. Our house sold 97 days faster than the average. That was important to us as we had an aggressive time schedule in which we wanted to complete our move to Colorado. Also, at that time in our area, the average sales price was 94.4% of the initial listing price. Our house listed for $650,000 which was the price we were hoping to get, and we did. $650,000 was the full listing price. That was 5.6% higher than the average price, which translates to a $36,400 increase over the average sales price.
The buyers did the normal home inspections and made some requests. John negotiated with us and the buyers’ agent and we quickly agreed on a reasonable credit at settlement. That was good for us, as this put the responsibility for all the arrangements for the repairs on the buyers.
Settlement was scheduled for March 22. We wanted to leave for Colorado well before that date. John arranged to represent us at settlement so that we were able to leave when we wanted. John had promised us that settlement would go well, because he would make sure that any possible problems were taken care of well before settlement. It did go smoothly. We got our proceeds check in Colorado a few days, later via wire transfer, It was a smooth transaction from start to finish. The financial results were exactly what we had been hoping for. The negotiations with the buyers to get to settlement were mostly stress free with minimal actual involvement on our parts. If you are thinking of selling your house and want to get the best price that you can, in a short amount of time, and have a strong negotiator on your side, John Herreid has our strong recommendation.