Recently I received a referral from another realtor outside of Pinellas County. This Gulfport home was a small house that had been used as a rental property, and it was in rough shape. It wasn’t going to be a big sale for me, but when asked if I could help I said of course.
When I first entered the home, all I could notice was an overwhelming scent of cat urine. Yikes! And then there was a giant hole in one of the walls, and the bathroom was…well…if you can’t say anything nice, right? Let’s just say I didn’t touch anything. The renter was still living in it, but was expected to leave that month, and I let the seller know the home was in terrible disrepair. I kind of wondered what I had gotten myself into, honestly, and wondered if it would sell, even to an investor.
Thankfully the tenant left without incident, and the real work began. Thank god for my wonderful handyman who went in there and cleaned the place up as nicely as he could on a limited budget.
I ran the comparable sales and told the seller I thought it would sell somewhere around $140,000 – because it still needed a lot of updating and figured a flipper or investor would still have to put $20-40K into it. The more updated homes in the area were going for $180-190,000-ish. I told her the real estate market tends to self adjust. If we are overpriced, we will either get no showings, or we’ll get showings but no one will make offers and we’ll know we have to adjust the price down. If we are underpriced, we will get multiple offers that drive the home back up to it’s true market value. This is a proven theory in every home sale, not just this one and sometimes it’s smart to go a little under what you think the real market value is because it creates an auction-like effect and people get excited and sometimes bid the property way up. She agreed and we listed it at $140,000.
I knew the Pinellas County real estate market was pretty darn hot but goodness! My phone rang non-stop from the time we put it on the market. I even had investors offering me side deals and shady bonuses if I sold it to them on day 1. But that’s not how I operate. We told every interested party to bring their highest and best by a certain date and time, and left it on the market for 5 days. We ended up getting 30 OFFERS on this property. It closed this past Friday for, $164,555 – just shy of $25,000 over the asking price. Needless to say – the seller was ecstatic at the results of her Gulfport home sale.
The moral of the story is this – big and small, we sell them all – and for top dollar!
When it’s time to sell your home, call Pinellas County’s Best Real Estate agents.
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YES! Liane Jamson sold that rental house for my Aunt and got top dollar for it. Liane walked me through everything I would have to do. She made sure that I understood what she was telling me. Liane got the handyman to clean the garbage up in the house and outside. He took pictures so I could see what he had to do to clean it up.
I can see why Liana Jamason is in the Top 1% Realtors in Pinellas County.Thanks Liana for ALL your help.