The Cameron Team closed escrow on this home in Scottsdale Mountain this week. The home 12070 N. 138th Street in Scottsdale, AZ, was in good condition but was lacking in the upgrades and improvements many buyers are expecting in today’s market. Also, for the size of the home, a pool is expected. This home had no pool. Well what does that mean????
It merely means it has to be priced to reflect the lack of upgrades, improvements and for not having a pool. We priced the home accordingly, marketed throughout the Internet and found a buyer. We actually sold it twice. The first buyer canceled based on the home inspection. The issues were minor, but this is a very subjective issue we deal with in selling homes.
After we lost this buyer we fixed many of the issues, about $750, which is minor when discussing a home worth around $400k. After conducting the repairs we found another buyer and closed escrow!
Our seller is happy to move on with her life. She moved to California. This home had sat vacant all last year and this year, while the home was for sale. Also another issue, it didn’t show as well vacant.
When I listed the home for sale, the seller defended the last agent as “doing nothing wrong.” I don’t want to bash the last agent, but review a point that is happening to many homes across the valley. Currently 50% of the homes on the market are “retail” which means an owner with equity. But only about 30% of the sales are “retail” homes. Why are so many retail homes on the market and not selling????
The reason is sellers have hired Realtors that are willing to over price the home. They don’t want to possibly loose the client and they either don’t know the home is over priced or they don’t have the skills to demonstrate to the seller the home is over priced.
This home was on the market with another broker last year for 359 days with no sale. What happened during that period and how did it affect the seller????
Last year, property values dropped in Scottsdale. As a matter of fact, the MLS shows that home values dropped 11.3% when comparing the 4th quarter of 2008 to the 4th quarter of 2009. That would be the average value in Scottsdale before this home was listed with another broker and then comparing that to the average value in Scottsdale at the end of that listing period.
So what can we extract from that??? The home sold for $389,000. The value was closer to $433,000 when the home was originally listed. By “chasing the market down,” the seller lost around $44,000 when looking at the average drop in values for Scottsdale during that period.
Lesson: listen to your Realtor and if you are following your Realtor’s advise and the home is not selling, consider changing Realtors!
4th Quarter Scottsdale Home Sales 2009 (click image to enlarge)
4th Quarter Scottsdale Home Sales 2008 (click image to enlarge)
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