I laughed at a friend's facebook post yesterday. She said something to the effect of a roll of paper towels at Costco costing her $125. I wonder how she does it when the same roll costs me $300?
As I mull over lopsided economics and prices we pay for common and typical things let me parlay her humorous perspective to my line of work, connecting local citizens with their new homes in the Chicago real estate market. What I noticed is that my clients at my most recent single family home closing spent $825,000 for a set of keys. Phew! One thing in our favor though is that the sellers liked my buying clients so much that they threw in two garage openers. There you go!
Actually, in that single home transaction in Lincoln Square the deal that my clients and I gained was ridiculously in our favor. How much so? The home's list price was $1.05m and we shaved more than $200k off in a lengthy negotiation process making the deal we hammered out more than 20% off list price. Can I get a WOW!
Truth be told, that negotiation was pretty challenging. The home was part of a corporate relocation and the corporate client held title. Having said this, the original owner was still involved in the process of hammering out an agreement. And no matter how I presented numbers, figures and statistics the seller (both corporate and individual) were stuck on what the house traded for in 2007.
Truth be told, though, 2007 has as much to do with current values as the words tea and party have to do with common sense. What was particularly daunting during the negotiation which initially culminated in an end of January closing was two-fold: the corporate owner is in Phoenix and apparently had 10 hour work weeks while the individual seller works as an actuarial with a world and numeric view that was as if set in concrete.
To give a sense of the silent scream of our talks consider that they commenced around Thanksgiving with an original culmination at the end of January. Because of unresolved items during attorney review we canceled that contract days before the slated close. A few weeks later I contacted the listing agent, a person who did an absolutely sterling job, and we started discussions again but with a price tag more favorable to us as buyers. The dichotomous seller with one part in Phoenix and one in Montreal still both dillied and dallied and necessitated another price cut singularly implemented by us the buyers.
At the end of the day the deal finally was realized on the terms that met our criteria. And this criteria was rooted simply in what we call market metrics. It was a measure of unsold inventory to available inventory, estimated market decline on the basis of current activity, and where things were trading in real time. And while the actuarials in Montreal found no pleasure in our argument, at the end of the day the plausibility of it was simply to great to refute.
And so my clients, folks with whom I have been working since 2004, were able to spend $825,000 for a beautiful set of keys along with two garage remotes.
If you want to get your own set of keys (I can't promise a garage opener), give me a call at 773.848.9241. The current market profoundly favors buyers who, with the help of an informed Realtor like those at The Real Estate Lounge Chicago, will be able to gain the most favorable buying terms.
Talk with you soon!
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