SOLD OVER ASKING…
This is a common phrase you will read on flyers, online ads, and social media posts, but what does it REALLY mean? Often, it simply means a house was listed too low. I remember when I showed a house for sale in Milton to clients — a home in my neighbourhood and one I knew well. After viewing it, I specifically said that it would sell for about $80,000 over the asking price (otherwise known as MARKET VALUE). Sure enough, a couple of weeks later, I got a letter in the mail saying “SOLD FOR $80,000 OVER ASKING”. It’s a deceiving and shady tactic that real estate sales representatives do to make themselves look good.
OUR LISTING…
We recently sold a house for $1,038,000. Before listing the house for sale, we completed a thorough market analysis and determined the market value to be $980,000. Because there were very few comparable homes available, we decided to push the list price to $1,000,000, and, after thirty days, we sold it for $1,038,000.
How we were so successful selling the house:
We met with our clients almost two-years before listing their home for sale, and a good thing too because they had A LOT of work to do. After living in their home for the better part of three decades, they had accumulated a lot of stuff. The home had served them well, and it was time for some freshening up. After we completed a detailed staging/selling consultation, here’s what our clients did:
- Some SERIOUS decluttering
- New roof
- New windows
- Depersonalized
- Installed LED pot-lights
- Replaced old light switches and electrical outlets (previously brass, swapped out for white)
- Painted the brick surround of a fireplace white (previously brown)
- Painted most of the home
- Finished renovating a partially completed three-piece bathroom in the basement
- Converted carpet stairs to oak w/ new railing
- Replaced carpet in upper hall w/ oak to match the stairs
- Natural oak trim painted white
WE TOOK OVER…
I won’t get into all of the work we put into the house, not to toot our own horn, but we did A LOT inside, outside, and online to ensure everyone fell in love with the house. Check out our KT Catalogue for details on our services if you wish.
THE SECRET…
Here’s how we got $38,000 over asking and $58,000 over market value IN A MARKET WHERE IT WAS NOT COMMON. Firstly, we received an offer after one week; the offer was $70,000 under asking. We subsequently negotiated the price up by $50,000, and we ultimately walked away from it. Three weeks later, we received another offer, this one for $150,000 UNDER asking. We were excited! Not because of the value, because we now had sixty appointments through the house, busy open houses, and PLENTY of people to call.
We contacted everyone who visited the house and made multiple attempts through various means to ensure that we connected with everyone. As a result, we were able to generate two more offers. The first offer got us excited for no reason other than the fact that we could leverage it… and it worked.
There have been COUNTLESS times where we show a house and find out later that it sold without us being informed of an offer and many times where we receive an automated email informing us of an offer but no real effort made by the listing Realtor to probe further. This is a crucial component of selling, and THIS is how you get top dollar (assuming you’ve followed all of our other advice leading up to this point!)
BEFORE AND AFTER
