How to find a realtor?

I live in a suburb in Indianapolis Indiana. My husband will be retiring soon and because of my health issues we plan to move out of state.

How would I go about finding a realator?

We had one, an old friend of my husband,  look at the property and he had never heard of permaculture. He told me I’d need to write the description of the property and unwind it but when I asked specifically which plants and trees to remain be he’d say “oh leave that one.” I think he just considered the area over planted. I know this isn’t popular in Indiana, but I’d really like to find a buyer that would keep the land organic and I really don’t want to cut down all the fruit and nut trees.

May I suggest a realtor that charges a flat fee. My wife and I just sold a house in the Nashville market a few months ago. After interviewing several, including one who charged a flat fee and was referred to us by a coworker of my wife, we chose the flat fee realtor. I learned that, basically, all realtors do the same paperwork and same coordinating with people and title attorneys. In Tennessee, anyone can take a 60 or 75 hour educational course, and be liscensed to broker real estate, but to become a liscensed Realtor (trademarked) is like 500 hours of education. May I suggest to look and see who's a broker and who's a realtor. The other difference I learned is personality, drive, passion; do they care or is it another paycheck? are they motivated or burned out, dreaming of another job? Do they seem like they care?

Of the realtors we interviewed, one had been selling homes for 30 years, seemed to know everything and had all the answeres, and that persons fee was 6%. Just the listing agent fee. The realtor that was recommended to us had been selling homes for about 15 years, seemed to know everything and had all the answers, and charged a flat fee of $1000, payed up front. We went with the flat fee listing agent, and sold our home for just shy of $300k. We kept about $16,000 in fees in our pockets that we would have had to pay another listing agent, to do the same job our agent did.

I just did a quick internet search of "Indianapolis flat fee realtor" and there's several to choose from, if this is something you're interested in considering.

Hope this helps you make a decision!

Thank you. We will definitely look into that!

Just remember that the Seller ultimately drives the bus.

Yes, others may try to influence your decison, but ultimately you and your husband are the ones who will say yeah or nay to a buyer. It really is that simple, although in real estate it seems they use a lot of confusion, and foreign terms to try to take away from that, But if you like a buyer, you can be generous and really help them get into it, or alternatively, if you are afraid they might not appreciate your permicultural home, then you can say no.

And while I do recommend a realator, as we are currently selling two of our homes, and never got much interest trying to sell it upon Zillow, you can still do a lot to sell the home yourself. For instance I put out a 6 page newsletter on our homestead, and print it off. Everyone that views the house gets a copy of it so they can read it later. I do this to stress the importance of homesteading, which is our preferred buyer as we have do so much to make it ideal for farming. Ultimately it is in my best interest to sell the homes, so i will work hard to make it sell, and not just lay back and leave it to a realator. No one knows the home better than I do after all.

I think it has paid off. We have had about 25 couples tour one of our houses, and got 3 offers in 7 weeks of being on the market.

We got two offers now, but one is non-homesteading, and the other currently homesteads and wants something better. We are working with the latter pretty hard so that she can get it. Since I have a lot of farming contacts, we are helping her work with unconventional financing to help her get the homestead. In this case it is with my contacts with the Small Business Administration to get her the farm financing she needs. We are cutting her a really good deal on the house too granted, but she had kind of tossed up her hands when it seemed she did not qualify at first. Do not give up hope yet!

My point is, the seller can do A LOT to get the right person into their home. If a seller goes the extra mile in helping, I think they can find the right buyer.

Thanks. I will write a description myself and make handouts.

As much as I’d prefer that the buyer will keep this land organic and follow permaculture practices, we really are not financially able to be choosy.
This is just a 4 bedroom house on less than an acre and we need the money from this sale to buy another home.

Here in Indiana very few people care about the environment. I don’t really know how to reach the few that do. I may get some interest from Preppers, but I’m in the suburbs so it’s not ideal for that group.

My family also live in the Indianapolis area, having grown up here but recently having moved back here from Alaska... and my introduction to permaculture was by Swiss friends in Switzerland (2014) via Sepp Holzer materials, while learning to make organic cheese on their alp farm.

That being said, I deeply feel and sympathize with your struggle, because I also know how indifferent people in Indiana are to permaculture living and ecological protection / environmentalism in general.

In order to be the change I want to see, I’m returning to university at age 37 to study sustainable / renewable energy engineering via Purdue at IUPUI.

All this said, It will be at least 1-3 years before my family are able to buy a permaculture property; but I am ecstatic to find others are DOING it here.

A couple of thoughts:
Write up everything you can, what trees there are, what you have done, etc. If it sells to someone who isn't a permie, they can at least make intelligent decisions about what to keep or not.

Write up a good thread here, and post it, you never know who will see it!

Look for local gardening groups, check FB if you are on it, see if any of them know anyone who wants a new home, or who is an agent with a clue. Beacuse "I asked specifically which plants and trees to remain be he’d say “oh leave that one.” I think he just considered the area over planted." screams"  NOT THAT AGENT!! to me.

As far as agents go, find one who gardens. Go through the phone book, call and ask "Hi, do you have a garden at your house? Does anyone in your office?" I learned a non-gardener as a real estate agent is not going to understand. When I bought, the agent had no clue what was rocky soil vs what had good dirt, it was all just dirt to her.  I saw a net listing for one house that I glanced at, the house sucked, but out the windows (no pics of it!) was a LOVELY landscape, they had done a ton of work. I bet the agent chose the pictures.

I'd not look at it just as "a house for sale" but "a gardened house for sale" and make that a very visible part of the selling.
There ARE people in your area doing good gardening, not all calling it permaculture, but a LOT of interest. Make it an asset to your home, have you improved the soil? They can plant a garden easier. Have fruit trees? Already in place! The best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago, buying your place gets them ahead of the game!

:D Wishing you a wonderful buyer!