When a Southfield home went on the market last fall, the owner was worried about selling her house for a good price and in enough time to buy the house of her dreams? After all, the market was slow and if comparable sales were to be believed, she might have had to bring money to the table.
She listed with Ron Jasgur, who was testing a new way to sell real estate in metro Detroit, and the result worked: The homeowner received 10 offers in a 10-day period and eventually sold to a cash buyer for $240,000; $90,000 over the appraised value.
Jasgur’s new company, SellerNation, uses a proprietary technology platform as one part of a business model designed to drive multiple buyers.
“This new brokerage is a hybrid of the best of real estate auctions and the best practices of real estate brokers — the perfect combination,” says SellerNation CEO Rod Carey.
“Real estate auctions are great because everyone knows what day a property is going to sell,” says Jasgur, SellerNation’s president. “They level the playing field and create a sense of urgency in the marketplace.”
Selling real estate isn’t new to Carey and Jasgur. Their company, Woodward Asset Capital, has bought hundreds of suburban properties, rehabbed them and sold them using the same process. Their success led them to develop award-winning, auction-style technologies used by banks and mortgage lenders to mitigate fraud and manage the sale of distressed assets in all 50 states.
Cary says the focus and timeline of their sales process is more efficiencent and allows SellerNation to offer 34-day listing agreements and contribute 5 percent of its revenues to local non-profit organizations.
He says SellerNation doesn’t charge sellers a commission. Instead, the company adds a 5 percent buyer premium to an accepted bid. A common element of auctions, it’s also becoming a trend among traditional home sales. The National Association of Realtors’ 2013 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers revealed that 13 percent of homebuyers compensated the real estate agents in whole or in part.
“Everything we do is designed to make our listings attractive to multiple buyers, because competition is what drives price,” Jasgur says. “We’re literally built to negotiate with multiple parties to get the best possible deal for the seller. We’ve seen over and over again that the first offer is rarely the best.”
In addition to traditional sales, SellerNation’s market-making sales and quick timeline coupled with the level of transparency its technology provides makes this service ideal in cases like divorce, estate sales, and probate situations where it could be difficult to keep multiple parties on opposing sides on the same page.
To familiarize homeowners with SellerNation’s new approach, Jasgur and Carey are hosting Coffee Hours at local shops around town. They are: 10-11 a.m. April 8 at Panera Bread Commerce, 39450 W. 14 Mile Rd. (in Newberry Square at Haggerty Rd.); 10-11 a.m. April 10 at Panera Bread Bloomfield Hills, 2125 S. Telegraph Rd. (N of Square Lake Rd.); 10-11 a.m. April 22 at Panera Bread Novi, 25875 Novi Rd. (just S. of Grand River); and 10-11 a.m. April 24 at Panera Bread West Bloomfield, 6399 Orchard Lake Rd. (in the Orchard Mall).
SellerNation is headquartered at 29623 Northwestern Hwy.3, Southfield. Call 248-354-1400 or visit sellernation.com.
