Michael and Barbara Kohnhorst
“We were renovating our next house when we put our Oak Park bungalow on the market. Now, to say the market was ‘slow’ is an understatement. We thought there’d be plenty of time to complete our renovation before it sold, but Michael sold our house in 19 days. Thanks, Michael.”
We had lived in our Oak Park home for over twenty years. I am a freelance cinematographer, Barbara is a yoga instructor, and we live together with our grown daughter and her four year old. Michael helped us to determine how best to improve our property before listing it and suggested we store some of our belongings. We painted everything, made some stucco repairs to the house and garage and repaired the fence.
Michael had a realtor preview, two open houses, advertised in the local paper and featured the property in the home section of Realtor.Com. We got 99% of our asking price due in large part to how well the house showed – it was move in ready.
Camille Baxter
“I was in the middle of a divorce and on my way to becoming the single mom of 2 boys. To say I was completely overwhelmed doesn’t even begin to describe it. I had seasons of outdated clothes to sort through, neglected household projects to take care of and no idea where to start.”
“Michael stepped in and helped bring order to the chaos. He was a partner in the process. His willingness to listen, support and encourage when necessary helped to make a stressful situation more manageable.”
Greg and Betsy Wallis
“Michael and Greg and I went through an exercise in imagining who was most likely to buy our house before he made the list of what needed to be done and what should be left undone. In just 9 days on the market, our model buyer bought the house with no contingencies.”
We agreed that the couple who bought our house would be similar to us 10 years ago. They’d have one child and be 60% pregnant with the second, they’d be drawn to Oak Park schools, they’d have made sacrifices to save the down payment, they’d be losing one income shortly, they’d want a home that they could trust to remain in good working order at least the first year of purchase with no surprise costs, they’d gain income and as they did, they’d have their own priorities for upgrading the property. So, we didn’t upgrade the kitchen or the bathrooms which most sellers do reflexively in Oak Park.
Michael arranged a pre-inspection and directed our assets to functional upgrades like weather-proofing the windows and doors, repairs to the exterior and the electrical system. Michael sourced and supplied the contract labor for much of the work. He sought pre-approval and had a homeowners warranty drawn up by an attorney. He then had a stager come in to specify colors, what needed to be stored out-of-sight so that the potential buyer had a sense of scale, without the feeling of crowding. Oh, and he handled the marketing, showings and negotiations. “Wow, Betsy, how did you do it?” people ask me incredulously. “I listened to and used my realtor” I reply.