So you've got your house for sale, but it hasn't flown off the shelves, so to speak.
Buyers are looking, thinking, considering, asking the listing agent for updates ("let me know if anything is happening"). But offers? Not yet.
How do you rally those watchers and turn that interest into offers?
You might…
So you've got your house for sale, but it hasn't flown off the shelves, so to speak.
Buyers are looking, thinking, considering, asking the listing agent for updates ("let me know if anything is happening"). But offers? Not yet.
How do you rally those watchers and turn that interest into offers?
You might try what they just did at 232 30th Place.
This 4br/4ba, 2100 sqft. custom-built SFR has been offered for 6 months, after a mid-December (2016) start at $3.495M.
They had cut to $3.299M in March, but still, nothing doing.
So, last week, they cut $300K more (9%) all at once to $3.000M and essentially dared every buyer with potential interest to come a-runnin'. They even posted an offer deadline.
That should have worked.
Alas, it didn't.
Late Tuesday, they re-raised the price back up to $3.299M.
A similar effort happened recently at 404 9th.
This Asian-inspired modern (5br/5ba, 3930 sqft.) on one of the very best flat family walkstreets emerged in March at $5.999M.
The neighbor, a lot sale at 400 9th, had just come to market at $3.799M.
Maybe someone would want both. (Dave got those calls for sure.) Maybe someone would see the incredible values on the flat walkstreets and want to make this one theirs.
The lot at 400 9th sold immediately and closed in mid-April for asking price ($3.799M), a bit higher than several recent walkstreet lot sales.
404 9th tried cutting $200K to $5.799M. No action.
A cut in early May to $5.550M (-7% from start) actually did rally an offer.
But that one stayed in escrow only a couple of days. It slipped away.
Two weeks after the big "rally" cut had been made, it was retracted, and the price raised back to $5.799M. A few days later, the listing at 404 9th quit.
Hmmmmm, these are not exactly awesome examples of everything working out.
Gotta say, more generally, this dilemma is present all the time if a listing doesn't sell immediately. You have buyers come through, open houses draw traffic, you have agents checking in, there's that feeling of "interest" out there and you just know something is going to happen. But when?
The reality is that buyers have been picky and patient recently. Over perhaps 18 months, working with buyers and sellers, Dave's seen the same phenomenon over and over. Buyers like a property, but want to wait and see how others react.
Three times in 2016, Dave's buyers watched properties until they "ripened" a bit on the MLS -- and made public price cuts, in a couple of cases -- then found once they wrote offers, there were others writing at the same time.
Call it a "delayed action bidding war." We've seen something similar a few times this year. Last year, our clients prevailed in all 3 of those cases.
Were listing agents "shopping around" when they had offers, and calling in everyone who'd shown interest all at once?
Or were buyers (and their agents) just savvy, staying in touch, knowing when it was time to move?
Were these just cosmic coincidences?
Well, yes. Each scenario occurred. (Not sure how "cosmic," but you get the point.)
You can rally buyers with communication, if you've been tracking buyer interest. You can make a big come-hither price cut. You can cut a TV ad and run it during the NBA finals. (Better call Saul.) Or run a big, loud ad on Facebook.
There's an art to it. It's situational. The process is inexact, though. Your rush as a seller isn't the buyers' rush as buyers.
Do you remember the "luxury auction" from late last year?
That was for a condo at 710 MB Blvd. (3br/3ba, 1675 sqft.).
After a failed attempt to sell in early 2016 at inflated prices ($1.860M down to $1.779M), the sellers rebooted in September with what was meant to be a come-hither start price of $1.475M.
This was supposed to be an irresistible low bid, a screaming deal that would form a line at the front door.
That was Try #1 to rally buyers to act.
After 4 weeks, the promised "auction deadline" came and went with no offers. Whoops.
For Try #2 they reset the price and the deadline. It was now $1.375M. Within a few weeks, they did get offers, selling ultimately for $1.450M, below that "auction start price" from September.
Of course, there's another strategy available. You can try to rally buyers to a lingering listing, or you can price it attractively out of the gates.
712 MB Blvd. came out 4 months after 710 had closed, asking almost $200K more than the neighbor.
But the improved unit was obviously worth more, and its $1.639M price was attractive enough to draw multiple offers. Sold price: $1.675M.
Or look to this past week's action at 3005 Maple (5br/5ba, 3120 sqft.).
They already had the unpleasant experience of overpricing a couple years back.
So last week, the sellers came out at $2.450M, making it the lowest-priced full-size family home in the Trees (full size = 4+br, ~3000 sqft.).
They had found the sweet spot, drew multiple offers and went into escrow in no time.
They had rallied the buyers from the start.