Yeah, the biggest change being the influx of twentysomethings who are working for Epic. They don’t want to live out near the Epic campus, they want to live downtown on the Capitol square and walk to funky eateries.
I’m okay with that. The downside (more and more apartment buildings going up) is more than offset by the funky eateries.
I mean, come on… a breakfast joint that’s open all night on weekends? That’s a change for the better.
No, I was/am not psychic, psychotic maybe, but not psychic.
I do know that exposure time on an open market is essential to achieving the highest sale price for a property. Now, DOM (days on market) in different markets vary greatly, I have never witnessed a market where a DOM of four days achieved the highest sales price.
Real Estates agents (not I did not say REALTOR®) do not always work in the Seller/buyers best interest.
Yes, you got what you asked, maybe even more than you asked for your property…GREAT! But you did not necessarily get the Highest Sales price you could have for your home that you could have given the very short exposure to the market. The buyer may have gotten a much better deal than they realize especially if the appraisal finds the contract price was low; instant equity which could/should sweeten their financing terms.
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Tamerlane** Your market, in no way shape or form is “typical”.
There was a Canadian HGTV show years ago that I can’t remember the name of (Buy My House, or something like that? We called it “the scary guy in the black turtleneck on the roof” show) which showed all the myriad ways house sellers can screw up. But the most common problem was pricing the house too high. If you price it a bit low, you can instigate a bidding war. Price it too high and people might not make an offer at all.
We got a great deal on a house because the seller (who was a builder of all things) couldn’t be bothered to put a coat of paint on the dining room ceiling where the water heater had leaked. Plus he was a hunter and the house was full of his taxidermy - I’m sure that turned off more than a few buyers, especially the 2 bears.
Same with the house we’re in now - it was built in 1975, decorated that same year, and never changed. But we saw past the ugly to the potential.
Still, when we sold our place in Florida, I caved and painted everything a boring neutral because apparently buyers would run screaming from a house with walls of color… :eek::eek::eek:
That’s my experience as well. Price it low, and you’ll have a first weekend bidding war that will take it near or above what you thought you might be able to get for it. Price it high, and people will wait to see if you bring the price down - or lowball you.
It also ignores the carrying costs of the property - both tangible and intangible costs. For me, its worth it to sell a house on the first weekend and not have to keep it clean and tidy for weeks of showings, while arranging for the dog to be somewhere else. Its probably worth 10% of the purchase price of the house
Amen! I have so many friends who chose to put themselves and their kids through six months of hell (fixing every little thing, repainting everywhere, hiding most of their possessions), because they believed people would only buy a perfect, newly painted house with off-white rooms.
We bought our house “as-is”. The sellers were too busy to fix or stage their house, and we easily looked past the messes. And the ugly furniture. And that gaudy linoleum over pristine maple floors. We bought it ten minutes after they put it on the market, no haggling, no contingencies.
And now, after a lot of little repairs, we love our little house. And our little mortgage.
On average, sure. But for any particular property you can’t predict exactly what may happen - the right buyer who has been looking for something with just these features may come along the first weekend. If you haven’t seen the specific property and you don’t know comparable prices in the local market, you can’t infer that it was underpriced just because it sold quickly.
If you think being two and a half hours away from Chicago is bumfuck, nowhere, you need some perspective.
We just moved from the US to Canada, and this was our agent’s advice for selling our house, as well. We let her put it on the market for about 10k under what we expected, and a bidding war ensued which resulted in the house selling in 9 days for 30k over what we expected.
Not having to deal with maintaining a house while in another country was an added bonus.
People can’t pass up a bargain, even if they bid their way from bargain to bad deal…its the wonder of the auction.