All Forum Posts by: Matthew Paul

 Contact a local civil engineering firm , they know all the players . Also try real estate agents .

Honestly raise your asking price , you can always go down 

I believe the term is called "subrugation "  Where you cut a deal with a builder , he builds the house , when it sells you get paid for the lot .

Dont sell at any discount 

Well its still $15K , not chump change . IMO . If she has a buyer in house or does dual agency , not bad for a weeks work . If they can squeeze some out of the buyer , better for them . Houses in my price range in Severna Park are few and sell quick . if I sell myself they get nothing . As long as I net what I want , I dont care . If it does go on the MLS I am sure it will get shown , people will tell their agent they want to see it . There are only 5 houses under $700K for sale in this zip code .

@Lynn McGeein .@Jack Seiden  . fielded another bunch of calls today . All the same .  BUT there was a first , I had an agent show up at my house .I told her she was the first , and that I am impressed that someone is a hustler . I know who she is and she is a top producer in my area .  I basicly looked at her and said "  Its that bad isnt it , no inventory and agents are hurting "   She said , yes it is and we are losing agents right and left . 

Then she looked at me and said " You are basicly a No BS guy , what will it take to get your listing . And I told her straight up I will do 2% , thats it split it how ever you want . You and I both know that the house will sell in a week once it hits the MLS , probably over asking .

She said when do you want to list it ?  

I told her she is my first call , and it will be about 2 weeks 

In my area on a new build you are looking at close to 1 year just to run the paperwork thru to get a permit . Plus stormwater pits , reforest fees , impact fees , and some other fees . 

Its cheaper and faster to do a full gut remodel 

@Jack Seiden That makes some sense out of it . 

I put my personal house up for sale on Zillow as a FSBO . The responses have been overwhelming . In 3 days I have had 65 calls . Two from regular people and 63 from real estate agents . They all seemed to be reading off the same script , telling me how great they were , how they could make things easy how selling a house is difficult without the assistance of a professional . Honestly the majority sounded like used car salesmen . This wasnt just local agents but they were from all corners of the state of Maryland . Funny how all of them has interested buyers looking for a house in my area .

After a while I just answered the phone by saying , " Oh wow another real estate agent how can I help you ? " 

I have been in business over 40 years as a contractor ,  never cold called , never knocked on a door . Always had more work than I could handle due to our reputation .  After the conversations I has with these agents ( I am not painting all agents )  they sounded like used car salesmen talking down to someone .  I wasnt impressed with 95% of them .

Termites hate steel . 

Take your garden hose and put water in the window well and see where it comes in . Then you can solve the problem 

We are only getting one side of the story . Ask why the neighbor has a camera along his fence line ? Now for me , I wouldnt want an STR being run next door to me . Are their parties every weekend ? Noise ? Trash ? Theft ? There is nothing against the law about putting security cameras up on your property . It doesnt matter where they are aimed . No different if he were standing there on his property watching . Anything he can see from his property he can record , anything he can see from a public property he can record , its covered by the first amendment .