How to Sell Your Home in 5 Days: Second Edition [Paperback]

Bill G. Effros (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1998

First published in 1993, How to Sell Your House in 5 Days outlined an inspired plan for homeowners to handle the sale of their own houses, and it went back to press 5 times for a total of 65,000 copies in print. But in that time, the author, Bill G. Effros, did two things to make a new edition both desirable and necessary--he personally helped hundreds of sellers a year use the 5-Day Method successfully, and in the process of doing so, he refined and revised his original system.

There's still nothing else like it. Based on the one basic truth of free enterprise--that your home is worth exactly what the highest bidder will pay for it--this better way will enable every seller to make more money in less time with no risk. The step-by-step plan shows exactly how to price your home, write an effective ad, use buyer psychology, and conduct round-robin bidding. But now in the second edition are: more in-depth descriptions of different types of buyers; additional steps to take to prepare a home for sale; a new "What If" troubleshooting guide; detailed instructions for conducting an open house; a new chapter on closing sales; a new chapter for buyers bidding on 5-day sales; a chapter debunking home-selling myths, such as why the season doesn't matter; and an updated chapter on transferring ownership.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Homeowners who are determined to sell their houses without agents, but who have no time to waste, may want to try the unusual approach detailed in How to Sell Your Home in 5 Days. After many months of failing to sell his house through an agent, author Bill Effros quickly and successfully auctioned it off. He since has sold several houses that way and helped others do the same. This involves placing Wednesday newspaper ads announcing that the home will be shown on the weekend and sold to the highest bidder on Sunday night. Daring as this sounds, Effros has a technique for handling the round robin bidding to elicit a bona fide offer at fair market value. Not for everyone, maybe, but a fascinating lesson in the mechanics and psychology of making an efficient market for a house or anything else. --Barry Mitzman

From the Back Cover

Turning the conventional on its head, here finally is an innovative, practical, foolproof alternative that makes the market work for you, whether you're trying to sell a house, a condominium, or a co-op apartment. Follow the 5-Day Method and you can take charge of your real estate future and Sell your home in 5 days, Get the best possible price, Save thousands of dollars in broker's fees and commissions, and Spare yourself months if not years of aggravation, disruption, and disappointment.

THE METHOD

Starting with the moment you've decided to put your property on the market, How to Sell Your Home in 5 Days gives you unequivocally clear, step-by-step instructions in key areas such as:

Pricing (Pre-sale)--how to use "magic" numbers and price points to reach a large pool of potential buyers

Preparation (Pre-sale)--what to fix, what not to fix, tests, inspections, and more

The Ad (Wednesday)--how to write and place a classified ad that will change your life

The Phone (Wednesday-Friday)--tempting buyers, keeping a log, and the Rule of 25

Open House (Saturday & Sunday)--final touches, informational handouts, bidding, greeters, and the closer

The Close (Sunday Night)--how to conduct a simple round-robin and reach your best deal exactly 5 days after your ad appears

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company; 2nd edition (April 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761109609
• ISBN-13: 978-0761109600
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #729,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Method works with a little updating, July 6, 2006

By 

Eric A. Huang - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: How to Sell Your Home in 5 Days: Second Edition (Paperback)

I sold my San Francisco condo using this method at market price.
I netted $30-$40k more than if I were to have sold it using the conventional method paying a 5-6% broker commision. Here are the updates I would suggest:

1. use a website service - George Cappony's 5-daysale.com does a great job. The website service should include a way to track the number of hits.
2. If you use a website, expect fewer calls (most people I talked to said they got 5-10). The website does the work for you, and you don't have to be at home to answer calls.
3. Use a minimum undisclosed reserve price to protect yourself. This should be what you think is market price minus the 6% commission you would normally pay. Then make the listing price REALLY low. If people don't say your price is ridiculous, then drop it even more.
4. Place your newspaper ad for 8 days instead of 5 days. Most people only read the Sunday paper, so if you start the previous Sunday, you will get maximum marketing exposure.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Sold My House in Five Days, July 9, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: How to Sell Your Home in 5 Days (Paperback)

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]

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Concept is gold. Just don't get your hopes up., February 2, 2007

By 

D. Boesch (St. Louis) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Sell Your Home in 5 Days: Second Edition (Paperback)

The concept of this book makes great sense. However...

POINT 1: First and foremost, ask yourself this VITAL question: When you ACCURATELY describe where you live (as a township or municipality), will that location alone draw attention to your listing with such a low featured price? If the objective answer is "no" then this program will NOT work!!!! St. Louis is plagued by many pockets of unincorporated areas, leaving the homeowner to describe their location in terms of South County, North County or West County.

POINT 2: Using a newspaper to place your "5-Day Sale Ad" is antiquated in most markets. Again, that includes St. Louis. The St. Louis Post Dispatch is a poster child for poor presentation of real estate. Major realtors buy half-page and full-page ads to feature their listings in order of price, not location. For all others (mostly FSBOs), you're left to slot your ad within a tiny municipality that most people have never heard of (even those who live there). And you won't find realtor's listings repeated in these location-specific sections. So guess who looks there? All those who can barely afford your home at its starting bid price.

POINT 3: System doesn't work well in a Buyer's Market. Buyers can sit back and look at a surplus of homes with leisure. Why would they consider jumping into your home if they can't see it until day 4 or 5? Our home spent 6 months on the market in the $200K range using a realtor and attracting painfully few interested parties. We dropped the realtor, dropped our asking price by $15,000. We were then willing to accept $9,000 less than THAT selling by owner. Using this book's method we printed a starting bid at $40K BELOW THAT PRICE. By Friday, when you're supposed to receive a couple dozen or so calls at the minimum, we received only 3 phone calls. Newspapers don't credit you for pulling an ad on day 4. This little 5-day experiment cost us $250.00.

POINT 4: Unless you're in a progressive market, most people just don't understand the concept of a 5-day sale. Especially the real estate agents in my area. If they understood it, they would fear it. Now, if 100 interested parties had walked our home, then I imagine that we could have found 5 parties who understood the concept and would have been willing to play along. We didn't get 100. We brought in less than 20. None of them had done comparisons on the neighborhood. All were clueless.

POINT 5: The book is being revised so WAIT for the new release!!!! The version I purchased (the only one currently available) describes the Internet from a 1998 perspective which says it's not a prominent enough tool to possibly substitute for an ad in a newspaper. As you may have guessed, times have changed. I for one NEVER read the paper for available real estate (mostly out of poor presentation of the paper's real estate section). I use the Internet. I debated posting our home on MLS and [...] websites but you don't review those listings looking for an auction. I feared a massive onslaught of confused Buyers asking what I was trying to pull. Still, it would have attracted FAR more people in this market than our paper could have ever accomplished.

POINT 6: Visit the website associated with this book. It's ALL about buying bundled packages from the author's real estate expert friend. Those packages include listing your home on MLS and Realtor websites. I can't vouch for any of that... just found it to be opposite of what the book preaches. Maybe this will be incorporated into the 2007 edition.