Real Estate Tips and Information by Karen List

For this transaction in Saratoga sold for $1,350,000, I was the listing agent. The seller is just the most down to earth, coolest woman with a fabulous sense of humor…which was needed for this listing. She had me laughing often with some of the emails she sent to me. Her parents owned this home since she was a youngster and both passed so she inherited the home.

There was a TON of stuff left behind from like 30+ years of accumulation. It took her almost 2 years to go through it all and get organized. Apparently, her step mom had like 200+ pairs of shoes alone, mounds and mounds of clothes, a workshop FULL of just all that you could ever imagine being in a workshop, plus tons of books, pictures, etc, etc, etc. You name it, they probably had it.

Once the listing came on the market, I had over 200 groups of people through the home by the end of the first open house weekend. It was just a mad rush for this home because it’s in the Golden Triangle, a highly desirable neighborhood with highly desirable schools and very few homes that go on sale in the area. In total, we had literally about 500 groups of people through the home and that is no exaggeration. It was amazing how many people went through this home in such a short period of time.

Initially, before listing the home, we were a bit nervous about how it would go with this listing because it is on a T intersection lot, has a 4 in the address, and someone died in the house…basically, it was a Feng Shui nightmare in a neighborhood of Feng Shui enthusiasts. And, typically people that care about Feng Shui will not buy homes in which people have died inside the home. So, 3 for 3…nice!

However, after the open house weekend, we thought for sure we would have multiple offers by the end of the weekend based on the activity level. But, come to find out, the Feng Shui concern and death in the home were valid. 95% of the feedback I received from buyers and agents was that it was a great home and they would make an offer, but they simply could not buy the home because of the T lot (and a great majority of that percentage also cared about the death in the home), 2% didn’t care about the T themselves, but were concerned about the T lot being a problem when they went to sell, the other 2% cared about the death in the house but not the T lot, noone mentioned the 4 in the address, and 1% it just was not the right house.

And, that seemed to be the same percentage splits of feedback until we received an offer from a buyer that did not care about the T lot, the 4 in the address, and the death in the home…and it was SOLD! The transaction itself was a very smooth one, although, the buyer used a bank named Provident for the loan who are just the worst and took forever to get the loan documents to the title company. Other than the Provident delay, it was a very smooth transaction.