You Are Beautiful...but Completely Off Your Rocker!

You Are Beautiful...but Completely Off Your Rocker!

We've all run into them at some point and time right?  Ya know that really nice looking agent on the other side of the offer, open house, or closing table? Or how about that overpriced listing that is all glamour and no substance?

After reading a few blogs about over-priced listings, I was reminded of a situation I came across when I first got into the business years ago.  I was showing buyers several homes in the Westchester neighborhood of Los Angeles which is about 5 mins from the beach.  A great little area where people look good - they just do.

After my buyers and I had finished viewing a home that fit their criteria and price range, we decided to take a look at an open house around the corner from it.  My buyers had asked me if there was any particular reason why it wasn't on our list.  I told them, "Oh only THOUSANDS." As in it was priced approximately $40,000 over recently sold comps.  This home had been on the market for about 170 days with not one price adjustment.

 

We walked into the house and WOW.  Wow for both the house and the agent holding the open house.  The home was staged beautifully and had a nice open floor plan where they had knocked down a wall.  The agent was really good looking, dark hair, blue eyes, not quite 6 ft, but hey it was nothing a pair of thickly soled shoes couldn't remedy. 

Anyway, he was talking to what appeared to be a female agent, her buyer and the buyer's mother.  Gushing is the only way to describe it.   He was cheezing, they were cheezing and I was eavesdropping on the sales pitch and the surface questions the buyer's agent was asking.    

We walked through the home and it was very impressive!  But not so much so as to justify the additional $40,000 on asking because: 

• 1)  Homes in the area were already considered "cozy" and there wasn't any additional square footage added to the home. 
• 2)  The home was the exact same floor plan as not only the home we had seen around the corner up for sale, but many of the other homes in the area that were built by the same builder. 
• 3)  My buyer's uncle was a licensed contractor and would be able to pull off the same look for a quarter of the padded cost they added to asking price. 

The agent asked us if we liked the home.  We told him that it was "nice." He asked, "Only nice?"  The megawatt smile made an appearance (appraised at $40,000 I'm sure) as he kicked into his spiel about the home's features and all that it had to offer.  My buyer (the husband) who didn't take to this guy on sight said to him, "According to comps this home is seriously overpriced."  This would be the same buyer that I had to explain what comps were only a week earlier.

Ken/Wonderboy Realtor:  Well the seller is happy with the price. 

My buyer:  But he would be much happier with an offer. 

Ha!  The situation made me wonder who was charmed by whom?  Was the seller hoodwinked by the Realtor or the Realtor by the seller? Could it be that each of them believed that the beauty of the Realtor or the beauty of a staged home would bring in buyers that would be willing to pay such a ridiculous overprice?  My buyers ended up buying the home around the corner and knocking out the drywall to mimic the floor plan of the overpriced home.  We got a steal as it was an REO!  The overpriced home sat another 4 months (at one point going into escrow but later falling out).  After awhile I stopped tracking it.  Maybe other buyers thought as we did regarding the home and the agent.  You are Beautiful...but completely off your rocker if you think you're worth paying that kind of price!

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Ken doll photo courtesy of TinkerTailor and Barbie photo courtesy of Thomas Hawk for Creative Commons

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0

 

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