Posted by MIRELA MONTE on February 28, 2009 at 7:44pm
As a follow up to my earlier blog: "The Ocean Between Buyer and Seller", here is my letter to the bank decision makers, arguing for the acceptance of a price which is $165,000 (34%) lower than the original asking price. This, along with the comps of this neighborhood and the adjoining neighborhoods, pictures and video of other, better priced listings will accompany this presentation tomorrow. Please give me any tips that may help me offer a more compelling argument!Bank A, Neighborhood Z6 Month Analysis:Homes Available for sale: 20Expired Listings: 26Withdrawn Listings: 29On Hold (don't show): 1Pending Sale: 1Sold: 1We have a unique situation in Neighborhood Z. The community is incomplete; only about a third of the lots have been built on with two thirds of them still vacant (raw land). Twenty properties are currently available for sale. Four of these available properties are Bank owned and two of them are short sales. In the past 6 months this community has seen a total of 26 listings expire and 29 listings withdrawn.We could only find one property sold within the last six months. The listing agent of that property claims that he only inserted the transaction in the MLS as a favor for an out of state builder who sold the property to one of his out of state investors. The property shows a sold price which is about twice the amount indicated by any of the current listings. We've tried to reach that builder repeatedly, but as of yet we have not had any success.The only property that has a contract on it and is waiting to close is fairly similar to ours in terms of price and size, although it's somewhat smaller. The current pricing on it is similar to ours and the original price was similar to our original price. We will not know what it sold for until it actually closes, if and when it does.There is another available property, also bank owned, which is 200 sq. ft. larger than ours, but priced for $50,000 less than ours. Most likely that property will sell first, unless we lower our price first. If we used the same price per square foot as that home, our price would be $333,333. The $325,000 offer we received today, although significantly lower than our asking price, is right in line with the market price.When the property was appraised last month for $390,000 (was the appraiser local and familiar with our market, or an out of the area appraiser?), this lower priced competing listing was not yet on the market.This neighborhood is in close proximity to Neighborhood T, U, X and Y, which are all finished neighborhoods of a higher caliber offering homes at similar prices and still garnering a very low level of transactions. Because "Neighborhood Z" is only one third complete and has so many competing properties for sale and virtually no sales activity, my fervent recommendation is to accept, or come close to the Buyer's offer price.Mirela Monte, Your Myrtle Beach Real Estate Connection
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