It’s 3:06 AM here at my office, and I’ve just finished putting together a mailing to the lucky owners of the Villas of Capitola, a condo complex on 46th Avenue – just down the street from where I sit now, actually. Outside, it’s raining – water is pooling up in the parking lot, it’s looking kind of like a lake. This is some kind of crazy weather we’re having, isn’t it? Climate change? What, me worry?
I’m writing to the owners of the Villas (most of them, anyway) because I want to see if they’d like to sell their condos. They’ve probably been asked this a million times – most property owners are deluged by solicitations from Realtors, like myself, asking if they’d like to sell their property. There are tens of thousands of housing units here in Santa Cruz, though, so how is it that the lucky owners of units in the Villas were chosen to receive this batch of mail from me?
I had the good fortune to sell two units in the Villas recently. I helped two different buyers find homes there, both in February, and the sales closed in March – the last one a week or two ago. So, I thought it appropriate to write to the owners there and let them know that not only can I list their property – I can also find them the buyer! Let’s see what happens. I’m sending out 142 letters; if I get even one or two responses, that will be a pretty good return.
Live by the Beach
Another interesting thing happened today (well, yesterday). I went into contract on another home I’m listing up in Boulder Creek (check out my RSS Feed for listings and see if you can guess which one it is!). What’s so interesting about that? The interesting part is that it was on the market about 4 hours before I had an offer. Within about 24 hours of listing it, we had countered the buyers’ original offer, and a couple of hours after that the buyers signed the counter offer, and we had a deal! Escrow is now open at Santa Cruz Title.
Wow – a listing in escrow, after being on the market just 24 hours! Am I some kind of Realtor or what? Well yes, I am! But that didn’t have a lot to do with it. It had a lot to do with the property itself – a great house. Maybe it was the ad copy that I wrote? A little baroque, maybe, but the seller and I liked it. The fact that it sold so quickly begs the question: was it under-priced? Nay, say I. It was well priced, and the right buyer – who had been looking up in Boulder Creek for months – happened to see it very soon after I put it on the MLS, drove up to see the property with his wife, and decided to make an offer.
Of course, the property isn’t sold. It’s just in escrow. The buyers have 14 days to release contingencies – they can back out of the deal any time up to that period without any risk of losing their deposit. They’ll do their investigations – septic inspection, to be sure, probably a home inspection – and they’ll need to get an appraisal, naturally, since they’ll be getting a loan to buy the property. Based on what the inspections reveal, or at what number the appraisal comes in, they may back out of the offer, or they may try to re-negotiate the price. It’ll be an antsy couple of weeks for the seller, most likely, waiting to see what happens at the end of the inspection period. Well, it’s like I say – Ommmmmmmmmm! If ever there was a time for a Zen-like lack of attachment, this is it. I’ll keep you posted how it turns out!
Time to talk to a REALTOR?
