Not mentioned here – a bidding war is the fairest way to select the buyer. Home sellers should read this carefully – this is not an April’s Fools joke!
I offer this service at a discounted rate, and have a long track record of selling homes for retail-plus prices using this technique. Contact me for more info:
Three hundred people came through the open house, 25 made offers, and the bidding war lasted eight rounds and four days. By the time it was over, in early March, the owners of the 2½-bedroom, one-bath condo in Brookline — on a busy street, but tastefully decorated and near the Longwood Medical Area — accepted an offer that was tens of thousands of dollars above the $570,000 asking price.
Eric Glassoff, the listing broker, a man with 13 years of experience, said he could have listed the property at a higher price, “but then we wouldn’t have made as much money.”
It’s a scenario being repeated around Greater Boston, as some real estate agents employ a tactic that seems counterintuitive in a sellers’ market. Rather than setting prices high to take advantage of a market where buyers have few options because of low inventory, some agents in communities with hot markets are going in the other direction — listing properties for less than they expect to get in order to trigger even more interest.
The goal is to attract a mob to the open house and set off a frenzy where emotion trumps the cold math of price-per-square foot.
“You can get a ‘Hunger Games’- style fight,” said Cambridge real estate agent Lauren Holleran.
Boston agent David Bates , the author of “Context 2015,” a forthcoming e-book that analyzes the culture of “over asking price,” said that once multiple offers come in, “people are not bidding to buy the property for value, they are bidding to win. Those are two totally separate things. If you are buying for value, you are negotiating. If you are bidding to win, you do whatever it takes to get that property.”
READ FULL ARTICLE:
that actually makes sense to me…..so much emotion in buying real estate….
JtR- do you have any thoughts / observations on the likelihood for a buyer to ‘exercise his right in the contingency phase to walk away’ in ‘regular listings’ vs. highly competitive listings with multiple offers.
A gut feeling of mine might be that if the buyer is ‘competing’ during the bidding phase, he may only be focused on ‘winning’, and not concerned at that time about ‘closing’.
Just curious as I do like the ‘flag’ you carry for list low for a multi-offer environment.
It could probably go either way.
The winner’s ego could keep them in the saddle, because typically there is some frustration behind the scenes (buyers usually lose a few before stepping up their bids enough to win).
But any hurdle along the way, big or small, might tip the scales too for someone who might start thinking they paid too much.
Just curious as I do like the ‘flag’ you carry for list low for a multi-offer environment.
Thanks, and I will do a video summary of my results. It is a great solution for all – especially buyers who prefer transparency.