With the help of MarketPlace homes, we sold our first house very quickly. That process was mainly smooth but if you’d like to read a review on our MarketPlace homes experience, see this post.

Once we had an accepted offer, it took about a month to close. During this time, we focused mainly on completing the sale of our first home. Once our home closed, we waited almost 30 days to close on our new Allen Edwin home.

This final leg of the process was probably the hardest for us. The new owners of our old home were anxious to schedule their move. We were feeling the same way — anxious to have our home finished so that we could start the next chapter. It was very much a time for “wait and see”. It was so exciting to see all of the parts and pieces come together for our new home. At this point, we had finished everything on our end. As a result, we were in a period of limbo and at times it was unbearable. It was like being a kid on Christmas Eve! If Christmas Eve dragged out for weeks, then every single day before our closing date was like Christmas Eve.

During the final 6 weeks, we spent our time packing, doing research for the things we’d need for our new home, and then of course waiting to hear anything on progress and a closing date. I can tell you this much — you can only pack so much before you run out of non-essential things to pack. There came a point where we had all of the non-essential things packed up but couldn’t pack up the essentials until much closer to the move.

Communication Experience

Our project manager had been great throughout the process. His weekly emails came in like clockwork and it wasn’t until the final 6 weeks that we found communication lacking. I’m not gonna lie. We were anxious for updates and a concrete closing-date as well as final walk-through timeline.  Instinctively, we knew that pressing our project manager and account manager for details wouldn’t have gotten us very far. After all, we didn’t want to interrupt the home-build process and cause potential “rush job” just to get it done. We also wanted a good experience overall and putting undue pressure on our team wouldn’t have gotten us that.

Our financial institution, as well as MarketPlace Homes, were in constant communication with Allen Edwin Homes. So, in those final 6 weeks, we received updates from them, which was a blessing.

The Final Walk-Through

The final walk-through was scheduled the week before closing. During this time we met with our project manager, realtor, and sales account manager. Our project manager took us through every room of the house for final inspection. He explained the inner-workings of the mechanicals — furnace, water heater, air conditioning unit. Also during this time, if there were any imperfections or if something was not working, we’d mark it down as something to be fixed before closing.

Our PM also explained the follow-up process after closing on our home and where to call if anything were to break within the first year. He provided us with a large binder that contained all of this information and more.

Overall, we LOVED our new home. It was exactly what we wanted and we gave ourselves room to do some upgrades in the future, which should provide additional value to our home.

Closing Day!

On the day of closing, we were all smiles and excitement. Most everything went according to plan. We had good communication with our team – our realtor, our Allen Edwin sales rep, our project manager, our financial institution account manager, and our title company reps. Everything came together as hoped (and expected). We got the keys immediately after close. Finally this new chapter has begun!

 

 

 

As with most homeowners, much of our equity was tied up in our current home. It was not equity we could tap into until we sold the home. Fortunate for us, Allen Edwin partnered with MarketPlace Homes and offered a program that allowed us to build our home with no money down, other than a small earnest deposit and then later, the lot transfer fee. The program also lessened the overall risk, since MarketPlace will buy your home for 90% of market value if they cannot sell it. They also take a reduced 1% commission to help you sell — instead of the standard real estate commission.

We were introduced to and signed up with MarketPlace at the very beginning of the Allen Edwin new-home-build process. I spoke to our MarketPlace rep at length about the process and she was fantastic in answering any and all of the questions I had in a very clear manner to start.

First, MarketPlace does NOT want to buy your home. This means, that they will put you in the best position they can to sell it. They sent a photographer to our home to take professional photos. We followed their advice on staging and made the house as presentable as possible. In the end, the listing was beautiful, down to the photographs.

They also gave advice for “when” to list the home, which is so critical. If you list too early, you risk not having enough overlap and if you risk to late, you risk having too much overlap. Our main contact at MarketPlace Homes was great at setting a timetable for this. MarketPlace and Allen Edwin kept in communication during the whole process to get the timetable as on-point as possible.

Once the house is listed, MarketPlace Homes representatives will call to schedule showings of your home with different realtors. We were fortunate to have a great amount of interest and got smart about setting a time-range for showings. Initially, we would schedule them as they came in but reality set in very fast and moving a family of 5, plus 3 dogs out the door at a moments notice proved to be unrealistic. So, we started blocking off great chunks of time to make sure that whoever wanted to see the house, could.

Huge thanks and a shoutout to the MarketPlace Homes call-center! Y’all rock!! They kept everything running super smooth with the scheduled showings and were so pleasant to work with.

The Downside to MarketPlace Homes

One of the most stressful parts of the process for us was the lack of communication with our listing agent (not the main MarketPlace Homes contact). She was professional on the phone, which was to be expected but there was a lack of communication overall. We were not at all in control of the process, down to the bids. She picked the offer that she felt was best and didn’t consult with my husband or me on any of the other offers. She also didn’t give us a whole lot of information about the closing process. There were some key pieces of information we needed to know before closing, that was not communicated to us until the very last second. Like for instance, the buyer’s title agency had reached out several times to get some paperwork and information from our listing agent without any response, so it was something we had to take care of ourselves at the closing table.

At the end of the day, we had to remind ourselves that MarketPlace was only taking a 1% commission to sell our home, so perhaps that meant we had to sacrifice some control and good customer service from the listing agent in the process.

Final Thoughts on MarketPlace Homes

Despite our listing agent experience, the overall experience with MarketPlace Homes was positive. They did what was needed to help us sell our home and it sold very fast. The professional photos helped immensely. The timeline was darn near perfect and we were able to obtain occupancy for 30 days, while our new home was being finished. In the end, it worked out very well.

However, if I had to offer any piece of constructive criticism to the MarketPlace Homes program process I would say that because they also get a commission on the home that you are building with Allen Edwin, some parts of the process could be a little friendlier and more communicative. When you sell your home and have no control over a process that is in and of itself anxiety-inducing, good communication and inclusiveness in the process can work wonders to ease that.