Case Study
Owners of 15933 York Road in Sparks, MD, Ping Xia and her husband Peter Borja tried a beta version of propbid.io at the end of September 2020. The couple made several attempts to sell their home with a broker in 2019, but were unable to find a buyer willing to pay their price of $539,000.
They were turned off by the high commissions associated with traditional brokerage listings and by the secrecy surrounding negotiations. They were looking for an alternative – a sale methodology that not only got them what they believed their home was work, but also came with zero seller fees/commissions.
Upon completion of their entry form, Ping and Peter were filtered to propbid.io's transparent, competitive bidding platform. Cynicism about the traditional Real Estate transaction gave way to excitement. Peter and Ping were encouraged by the prospect of selling their home in a new, more efficient and more sophisticated way. They became the first sellers to test our platform.
By the Numbers
propbid.io provided a working demonstration of its bidding platform to Ping and Peter at the end of January 2021. Other than our recommendation that the couple do some minor paint work, the property was in turnkey condition. The couple completed propbid.io's easy Pre-listing Checklist, and the property was listed in Bright MLS as ‘Coming Soon’ on March 3rd with an active date - and start date for showings - of March 5th. The property received 87 showings in 5 days, and bidding was scheduled to end at 8 pm on March 10.
From the day propbid.io introduced the property as ‘Coming Soon’ until the final day of bidding, propbid.io fielded calls from at least 20 real estate agents and 5 non-represented buyers. On every call, we heard the same thing – agents and buyers alike said that this was a much-needed solution to a seriously broken process. Rather than being told to “make your best and final offer” and asked to creating 50-page contracts merely to submit an offer - all an agent or buyer using propbid.io needs to do to begin the bidding is complete a simple registration process that includes uploading a lender pre-approval letter or proof of funds. And it is the sellers that benefit most from this proprietary optimization propbid.io has developed.
An opening bid came on Friday, March 5th in the amount of $450,000. By the evening of Wednesday, March 10th, the high price was $550,000. At 7 pm, with just an hour to close, Peter and Ping's propbid.io representative hopped on a call with the sellers to watch and assess the bids as they rolled in.
What Came Next
As the deadline for bids approached, the action on Peter and Ping's property became truly exciting. As with a regular auction, propbid.io does not permit sniping (any attempt to place a bid in the last moments of an auction to foreclose the possibility of a competing bid). With propbid.io if an offer is submitted in the last 10-minutes of bidding, an additional 10 minutes is automatically added to the clock.
In Ping and Peter's case, the bidding went into the proverbial double-overtime. When the price reached $600,000 all but two players had dropped out, and the two high bidders went head-to-head until the price hit $610,000. Although they were offering the same price and both had home inspection and finance contingencies, only one was offering a down payment of $100,000, where the other was offering $60,000. The bidder with the lower down-payment amended their inspection contingency to exclude seller concessions. Then the other bidder went to $615,000. With no further bids, the clock ran down and the seller accepted this offer.
Final Sale Price: $615,000
“We are ecstatic about the success we had selling our home with propbid.io. It is the reason for our success... We would not sell a home any other way!”
— Peter B. & Ping X.
Using propbid.io, Peter & Ping got $76K over their asking price. Where the traditional Real Estate market was not responding to their $539,000 asking price, the couple used our platform to quickly identify the best way to sell their home, and exceeded their wildest expectations when the property sold. Here’s what they said about the experience:
In the fall of 2020 we saw a propbid.io commercial on TV advertising to homeowners wishing to sell their home with no commission. Usually commercials are just background noise, but my wife and I were discussing selling our property here in Baltimore County and I felt I had to look into this new and different way [of selling] Real Estate. I had never been happy with the usual process. In our previous home purchasing experience, we were always in the dark. We like a home, send an offer to our agent and then wait. Stress and anxiety set in. We like the property, we want to pay a fair price but to no avail, the property is sold with no knowledge of how much the other buyers were offering. I knew that this way of buying and selling real estate is traditional and accepted but I didn’t understand why it had to be this way. I convinced my wife to consider working with Rextar.
What The Sellers Said
We met with Jerry Silverman from propbid.io for a walk around of our house & property and discussed how we as sellers could potentially reap the financial rewards of selling our home and property for top dollar through a new program that [they were] developing. Jerry described their competitive bidding platform as a way to get many buyers bidding against each other, giving us the ability to select the best offer for us. We were immediately attracted to this new way of selling our home.
We effectively told Jerry to “show us the money,” and he convinced us to list our home at a price well below what we knew it was worth to attract as many buyers as possible. After dozens of scheduled home showings - it felt like hundreds of buyers rushing in to view our home for sale in such a short period of 5 days before the start of the property was listed, we watched the clock tick down from hours to minutes to seconds. We selected the highest bid with a substantial cash down payment and financing.
We are ecstatic about the success we had selling our home with propbid.io.
We put our trust and belief in this new selling concept that changes the playing field to give buyers an opportunity to help themselves get the property they want and to see the other buyers’ offers, all faster than the traditional way.
propbid.io is the reason for our success in selling our home here in Baltimore county. We would not sell a home any other way!
Peter and Ping used propbid.io to get the most for their home. Are you ready to do the same?
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