I’m caving and will be hosting an open house this Saturday and Sunday from 1-4pm. Feel free to come by and heckle. My promotion plans include signage, the Sunday Seattle Times and Craigslist. Any other promotion suggestions welcome.
Popularity: 4% [?]
26 responses so far ↓
1 Market Watcher // Aug 23, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Here’s a promotion idea, get over your ego and sell at a fair price. Its not gonna budge at 375k
2 brian // Aug 23, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Um, Redfin’s Sweet Digs blog is always bumping!
3 Peckham // Aug 23, 2007 at 5:05 pm
“Any other promotion suggestions welcome.”
How about a reasonable asking price, such as $360K?
13,000 people have lost their jobs since last Friday in the mortgage related banking industry. Act now or be price out (of selling) forever.
4 jo // Aug 23, 2007 at 5:35 pm
give it a rest
5 kpom // Aug 23, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Peckham may not be polite, but he is identifying what is probably necessary. The danger is following a dropping market down - doing repeated price cuts that never quite get the pricing down to market.
That being said, best of luck with the open house…
6 anonymous // Aug 24, 2007 at 6:39 am
funny how your tune has changed. i remember reading only a few short months ago when you were laughing at the Cosmo/2200 investors for trying to sell their units at inflated prices.
seems like now that your hanging out their in the wind, its a bit of the same.
7 DMG // Aug 24, 2007 at 7:37 am
talk about a tiresome attitude.
8 BrettF // Aug 24, 2007 at 8:00 am
The mortgage crisis like all negative events that have economic consequences creates uncertainty in the market place. This uncertainty results in homebuyers proceeding with more caution. It is the media that labeled the situation as a CRISIS. They are good marketers who sell papers and advertising. I propose this is not a crisis but a normalization of the mortgage industry evidence by the fact that conforming loans are still being made all day long. It is the risky loans that were created by speculative mortgage banks that are failing and hence unavailable. When the fervor dies down, buyers will be back in force with a down payment, good credit, and realistic expectations.
What this means to you as a seller is… be patient. Hold your price firm. September & October will be good months.
As far as the real topic….. A-boards drive traffic more than any other form of advertising. You are in an extremely dense area. Place them on Broadway, Pike, and Pine with more short distances to your place. Then during the open house check on them from time to time as they may get kicked over by hooligans.
Now the shameless plug: You can also purchase preferred placement on http://www.CondoCompare.com so your unit rides higher on search engines. This, of course, is in no way intended to be a solicitation of a listing or interference in a contractual obligation between parties.
One last thing… anyone hear of people who were pre-approved for new construction project who’s finance contingency has been waived and who’s interest only, or zero down loans no longer exist?
9 Phil // Aug 24, 2007 at 9:40 am
talk about a tiresome attitude.
You’re not going to like the next couple of years then.
10 Bob // Aug 24, 2007 at 10:22 am
Constant negativity doesn’t win friends and families. I bet these bubbleheads don’t have many of those or at least keep their negativity to themselves in real life. Tell me I am wrong about that. Can you imagine having these doom and gloomers around in the office if they actually spread their gospels?
On the internet, that’s where they come out to play. It is understandable though considering they have to keep all that energy inside off the net.
11 kpom // Aug 24, 2007 at 10:40 am
Post title: “Selling #504 @ the ‘Taj: Open house”
We are discussing selling a condo.
Staging, publicity, presentation, etc. are all important, but pricing is important too, particularly in the current market.
If pursuing the alternative to “constant negativity” results in a condo that languishes on the market for months, I don’t think that this is a desirable outcome.
12 Peckhammer // Aug 24, 2007 at 2:43 pm
“Constant negativity doesn’t win friends and families.”
Nor does mention of reality, apparently. I know! Let’s talk about Pink Ponies and sip umbrella drinks at Columbia Tower!
13 Matthew // Aug 24, 2007 at 3:59 pm
BrettF,
It’s not necessarily a mortgage crisis, but rather a lending crisis. When the FED has decided to waive lending restrictions (as of 5:05 EDT today) between the two largest banks in the U.S. and their brokerage firms, something is definitely amiss in the commercial paper world. It has been STRICTLY prohibited for lending to exist between banks and their brokerage arms. The FED has always wanted these two entities to remain independent of each other in order to minimize FDIC insured entities of having too much exposure to the risky brokerages. Why waive this? Because their are SERIOUS problems in the commercial paper markets.
The media is not spinning this any worse than it is. If anything, the media (BTW who are owned by corporate America) have been spinning things much more positive than what is really taking place. Most insiders I have spoken with (including my brother in law who is a top guy at CFC in LA) say that the market conditions are the worst that they have ever seen. This crisis is real, and it’s going to get worse.
14 kpom // Aug 24, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Brett F. said:
“What this means to you as a seller is… be patient. Hold your price firm. September & October will be good months.”
Brett, I don’t know how you want to define “good months”, but I am willing to quite confidently bet you a large sum of money that September and October will not be “good months” in the Seattle real estate market. Post what objective, measurable criteria you want to use to define a “good month” for the months of September and October; the sum of money you want to bet; and the escrow arrangements you want to use to insure payment to the winning party (we can also stipulate that the loser donates to the winner’s favorite charity if you prefer).
15 richard // Aug 25, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Last year a buyer earning $93K/yr with 5% down could have purchased this unit.
In summer 2007, a buyer putting 5% down would need to earn closer to $142K/yr.
These figures reflect the change in interest rates, $30K increase in price, and more importantly, the requirement that buyers be qualified on a fully indexed and amortized loan payment. Last year, buyers were only required to qualify for the minumum payment. This calculation assumes that the buyer uses 25% of gross monthly income to pay the mortgage, taxes and homeowners dues.
Since incomes have generally not increased 52% in the past 16 months, the pool of potential buyers has decreased substantially.
16 BuddyLee // Aug 26, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Bret, Why would the newspapers/media try to spin or “market” this CRISIS being worse than it actually is. Like someone posted earlier, if anything, the media has held back on reporting on how bad the market is. You mentioned the newspapers are “good marketers who sell papers and advertising.” Last time I checked, a newspaper sold for 50 cents, so I don’t think they make money on selling papers. Also, last time I read an actual newspaper, a lot of paid advertising were companies related to the Real Estate industry. So why would the newspapers want to bite the hand that feeds them by writing negative stories about their sugar dadies?
17 JasonS // Aug 26, 2007 at 5:44 pm
How’d your open houses do?
18 Matt // Aug 26, 2007 at 7:31 pm
The personal attacks, sarcastic comments and comments that aren’t constructive really need to stop. I’ve received several emails and calls from my friends and family who read this blog and they’re shocked by what people have said in the comments. And to be perfectly honest I have a thick skin but the comments are getting to me and not making this hobby as fun as it used to be.
On the issue of pricing, comparable condos have sold/gone contingent/gone STI on Capitol Hill in the last few weeks. In fact, The Press seems to be doing a good job moving 1 bedroom units. Granted they’re offering 5% commission to the buyers agent and have a full time sales center on their side. So I feel like my asking price is reasonable given current market conditions. And that’s all I’ll say on price.
As for how it went, Saturday was much better than Sunday even though I had paid $70 to place an ad in the Sunday Seattle Times. A few readers did stop by and it was nice to chat with them. I don’t feel like I had any strong leads come through but then again I’m not a sales professional just an owner looking to move on.
19 EconE // Aug 26, 2007 at 8:02 pm
I second what Matt says.
Don’t beat up on him.
That’s what I’m here for.
Beat up on me.
http://www.2200life.blogspot.com
20 jcricket // Aug 26, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Cheer up Matt - the bubble bloggers have grown tired of the echo chamber on their own blogs so they have nothing better to do than beat up on anyone who doesn’t toe their line.
I’m glad I’m not in your position now (owning two units), although I’ve been there in the past (much different market).
I’m interested to know if you think that having a less-than-full service agent (I’m assuming you listed through your employer) is helping or hurting you? In a sense it might be hurting you as you’ve got to figure out all these marketing angles yourself (and, no offense, I doubt your as good a marketer as you think), but you also might have more room financially because you’re not going to pay out as much in commission.
Good luck!
PS. It’s your blog. Just delete the comments if they’re over the top.
21 Chris // Aug 27, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Keep up the good work, Matt. I’m a bubblehead insofar as analytics convinces me that market prices have run ahead of incomes, but I’m also a fan of urban development vis-a-vis that of typical suburbia. Your blog serves a useful public purpose by way of information assemblage and I’ve learned a lot here.
22 Joel // Aug 27, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Do you think the open house was worth it, or was it as much of a waste of time as you originally thought it would be?
23 Matt // Aug 29, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Joel, no I don’t think it was worth it in terms of selling my house. I think it was totally worth it in terms of understanding what we can do to improve the listing business at Redfin.
jcricket, I am using Redfin to sell. I feel like had I used a great full service agent (and I don’t know how hard it is to find a great full service agent) my marketing may have been better and my price strategy may have been different resulting in a faster sale. However, given the higher cost I don’t know if I would have netted out higher than using Redfin. I must say that I have received a lot of advice from my co-workers at Redfin and I have certainly given them a lot of suggestions about how to do business differently. In my scheme of things it is likely more financially impactful for me to use Redfin, learn a lot, perhaps miss out on a few dollars in the short term in order to win long term with Redfin stock.
24 JasonS // Aug 29, 2007 at 6:24 pm
You might have had a larger turnout if your open house signs were more visible. The one you had in front of Meritage wasn’t easily visible from cars driving on Bellevue. It was blocked by the landscaping and parked vehicles. If you had signs at the corners of Loretta and John, as other open houses have had, you might have gotten more people to see that there was an open house in the Meritage.
25 jcricket // Aug 30, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Thanks for the reply Matt. Given that it’s your employer there’s obvious reasons to try the experience.
I’m guessing that for the average consumer “piece of mind” might be worth something that the “learning experience” you went through wouldn’t eclipse.
Sure, having a crappy agent wouldn’t help, but I’ve had a great agent (not as hard to find as you think) help me with a couple of purchases and sales, and the “reality check” was worth the price.
To me it comes down to the idea that there are some people who just like doing-it-yourself, and see every dollar paid to someone else as a dollar out of their pocket. Then there are other people who put dollar values on their time, sanity, etc. Those people (me included) think that relying on vendors for things we’re not experts at can be more than worth the price, given what else is going on.
Good luck. Don’t forget to update us when you sell with all the gory details.
26 kpom // Nov 2, 2007 at 6:42 am
Brett F. said:
“What this means to you as a seller is… be patient. Hold your price firm. September & October will be good months.”
So Brett, were September and October good months?
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