Sold in San Jose for 15.9% Over List Price Six Days on Market

I recently closed a record-breaking sale of a home at 5359 Laurel Canyon Drive in San Jose. The sale of this home makes a good case study in how a home can be sold quickly, yet still for a very high price.  In fact, the sale of this home broke records for the sale price of this model home – despite the fact that it sold very quickly (just 6 days on market, vs. the area average of 17), no private showings, the home had received very few updates over the years, and the sellers only invested a total of $7,500 preparing the home for market.

This article will explain how it was possible to get this home sold in san Jose for 15.9% over list price so quickly, with amazing terms for the seller and multiple offers – which is what any seller can expect when they utilize my powerful two day sale methodology.

This home is located in Bel Aire Luxury Estates, in the Silver Creek area of Evergreen in San Jose.  Homes in this neighborhood were built in 1998-2000 and range in size from about 3,000 square feet up to almost 5,000 square feet.  These are executive homes – many are not truly luxurious but they are well built, thoughtfully designed, and sit on generously sized lots.  Schools in the area sought-after by parents, and area amenities include several lovely parks, numerous shopping centers, and the famed Silver Creek Valley Country Club.

It’s a 4 bedroom (plus an office), 3 bathroom, 3,062 square foot single level home on a 12,000 square foot lot. It had been reasonably well maintained over its 25-ish years, but few upgrades had been done.  The biggest upgrade was the addition in 2018 of 21 LG solar panels, a storage loft which had been built into the garage, new closet systems in the bedrooms, and a Sub Zero refrigerator was replaced in 2021.  Aside from that, the home was virtually the same as when they owners had bought it in 1999.

In the interests of full disclosure, when I say “record breaking sale,” what I mean by that is that the sale price for this home was the highest ever recorded of any home in the subdivision with the same floor plan.  The prior record-holder, however, had a lot that was over twice the size of the the property I just sold – and the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office attributes 75% of the value of that property to the land, and only 25% to the improvements – so a 2x larger lot is quite a bit more valuable.

It’s also worth mentioning that as of the date of sale, this home set the record for price-per-square-foot in Bel Aire Luxury Estates, at $1,059.76 per square foot.

Timeline

• May 6, 2024 (Day 0):  Listing Agreement Signed
• May 6, 2024 (Day 0):  Coming Soon campaign begian
• May 8, 2024 (Day 2): Prep Work commences
• May 12, 2024 (Day 6): Interior Prep Work complete
• May 13, 2024 (Day 7):  Photos and Video
• May 14, 2024 (Day 8): Exterior Prep Work complete
• May 15, 2024 (Day 9):  Home Inspection + Termite Inspection
• May 15, 2024 (Day 9):  Home Changed to “Active” in MLS (public on Zillow, Realtor.com, etc.)
• May 17, 2024 (Day 11):  Sales Clean performed
• May 18, 2024 (Day 12): Open House #1
• May 19, 2024 (Day 13): Open House #2
• May 21, 2024 (Day 15):  Offers Negotiated + Buyer Selected
• June 7, 2024 (Day 31):  Escrow Closes, Seller receives proceeds of sale

Narrative

The day the listing agreement was signed, I began a coming soon campaign, quietly marketing the property through paid and organic social media, while spreading the word to other area REALTORS.  One of the keys to getting a home sold quickly at the highest price possible is to get as many buyers in the door as quickly as can be.  By doing some pre-marketing of the property via the coming soon campaign, I was able to build considerable interest in the property before it even hit the market, while we were preparing the home for sale.

Once the listing agreement was signed I began lining up a crew to get the property ready for sale.  One big mistake many homeowners make is they spend too much time, effort, and money on home preparation tasks that really do not pay a return on the investment.  Quite often, home preparation is misguided, often spending many thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars, on work that will not move the needle enough in the right direction when it comes to increasing the sale price to the point where those “investments” pay off. By focusing on the low-hanging fruit, we were able to quickly and effectively prep the home for market at minimal cost.  Here are the specific things we worked on:

Exterior Work

• Repainted pergolas in backyard
• Repaired landscaping lighting in backyard
• Repainted rear metal fence + left side gate
• Paint Exterior Sliding glass door trim off primary bedroom
• Sanded/painted AC condenser grills
• Re-painted garage side door
• Touched-up paint at front door house body
• Pressure washed concrete
• Applied new mulch, added some flowers + plants

Interior Work

• Replaced 4 smoke detectors
• Installed CO detector
• Removed nails + screws from walls, fill holes
• Touched-up paint throughout house
• Touched up interior side of front door paint
• Replaced rotted door trim @ primary bathroom near shower
• Touched-up grout at primary bath shower + guest bath shower/tub
• Added ¼ round to sliding glass door
• Painted trim of primary bedroom sliding glass door

For Best Results

With the prep work largely completed in only five days, we were able to get the photography and video taken care of the seventh day after the listing agreement was signed.

We did need a few more hours to finish up the exterior prep work the day after the photos and video were taken – a few details that wouldn’t be noticed in the photos and video but would be important to discerning buyers when visiting the property in person.  Thus, eight days after the listing agreement was signed, all the work getting the home ready for sale was completed.

Prep work complete, the home inspection and termite inspection were performed the next day, on Day 9.  While the home had not been cosmetically changed much since it was built, the owners had done a good job with maintenance – and these homes are well-built to begin with.

We were fortunate that the home inspection and termite inspection reports were both very clean.  But had they not been clean, it is unlikely I would have recommended the seller do any work identified in these reports, as I utilize the as-is sale strategy.

Day 9 was also the day that we flipped the switch and made the listing “Active” on the MLS, so it would be published to Zillow, Realtor.com, and thousands of other real estate websites.  We did not plan to make the home available for showings until the open house that weekend, but we needed it Active so that buyers would have some notice about the upcoming open houses.

The sellers had a “day off” on Day 10, which they utilized to finish packing ahead of the open house. The next day, on Day 11, we had the cleaners come through the property and give it a good scrubbing so that the home gleamed for the open houses.

We had the first open house on Day 12 – and it was packed.  Given the higher price range of the home, open house traffic is typically lower than at homes which are priced closer to the median.  However, we had approximately 50 parties through the first day of open houses.  The next day, Day 13, we had fewer parties through, “only” about 30.  Many of these visitors, however, were repeats from the day before.

Outside of the days of the open houses, no buyers visited the property.  All buyers could see the property only those two days.

We received the first offer on Day 13, in the hours after the open house. The next day, Day 14, we received another four offers.  On Day 15, we received an additional 5 offers, for a total of 10.

I met with the sellers the evening of Day 15, and together we spent several hours reviewing the offers and negotiating with the buyers.  We finally accepted an offer shortly before 10 PM – just a day past two weeks after we had signed the listing agreement.

The offer we took was 100% non-contingent, as-is.  In fact, all 10 of the offers we received were 100% as-is and with no contingencies whatsoever.  This wasn’t just luck; I instruct agents how to write winning offers before they submit them, so the offers we received were all very strong and aggressive.

From there, it was a quick 16 days until closing.  The buyer wisely chose to use the mortgage professional that I recommended, who was able to get a super-jumbo loan (requiring not one, but two appraisals) done from start to finish in just about two weeks flat.

Conclusion

After the property was marked “pending sale” on the MLS, I began receiving calls from other REALTORs – wanting to know how much it was in contract for. That is privileged information, but as a professional courtesy, I did tell agents how many offers we’d received, and some guidance about where, generally speaking, the price was. Agents were by and large shocked by the number of offers, and how high they imagined the price had gone.  Actually, it had gone higher than most all of them had speculated.

So what’s the trick?  How did we get so many offers, such great terms, and a record-breaking price, for a home that was almost entirely original from 25 years ago, when it was built?

It all starts with strategic pricing leading to multiple offers and a bidding war. But there is another key ingredient: my secret sauce, the way that I prepare a home, market it for sale, and negotiate offers which is completely different than how virtually all other REALTORs presently working in Silicon Valley.

Now that the sale has closed, most of the homes which were listed before I put this listing on the market are still there.  Those homeowners are left wondering and waiting for a buyer, while the now-former owners of 5359 Laurel Canyon already have their millions in the bank and are moving easily on to the next chapter of their lives.

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