SEVENTY-SIX

That is how many showings I had on my condo listing before it expired, without a sale.

SEVENTY-SIX showings!  And not a sniff of an offer.

Do you think, maybe, perhaps, this unit was over-priced?

In 1992-93, Alexander Mogilny and Teemu Selanne each scored 76 goals in the National Hockey League.

Selanne, playing with the Winnipeg Jets as a rookie, absolutely smashed Joe Nieuwendyk’s old record of 51 goals.

Mogilny, playing on a line with premier-puck-mover Pat Lafontaine that season, only topped 50 goals once more in the next eleven seasons after that magical 1992-93 campaign.

So what does this have to do with real estate?

Nothing.

I just wanted to put the number “seventy-six” into perspective.

I recently had a listing expire at a condominium in the mid-town area.  I’d had this listing for several months, and when all was said and done, I did not sell it.

I am well aware that I am at least partially to blame.

However, and I stress this word more than any italicized-font ever could….there were more than a few “extenuating circumstances.”

When I first met my seller, he told me that he figured he could get “around” $300,000 for his condo.  I showed him the MLS listing for the exact same model as his that had just sold for $285,000 one month prior.  He then asked me if we could list the condo at $290,000.

I told him “no.”

The unit that sold for $285,000 was far superior to his, not only because of the upgraded flooring, counters, and kitchen appliances, but also because it was bright, clean, and didn’t have a stuffed bird in the middle of the living room.

Seriously.

I don’t know which was more odd: the stuffed hawk in the living room, or the stuffed owl in the foyer.

My seller had four couches where one would have fit just fine, and his choice in decor, artwork, and figurines was questionable at best.  It was, quite simply, the ugliest condo I had ever listed.

It would be a tough sell no matter what, but he insisted that we price his unit at the same $285,000 price that was just obtained for the unit one level above him.

The market was declining around this time, and I figured that the ship had already sailed on the $285,000 price.

So as I expected, the unit sat on the market all through the fall, and into the New Year.

We were essentially chasing the market.

Take a look at this graphic, which I believe is from the book Shift by Gary Keller:

Sure, it’s from a book that teaches Realtors how to sell.

Sure, it’s from a book written by a Realtor himself.

But there is no denying that this is what is happening all over the city, and I witnessed this happen first hand.

In January, I finally convinced my seller that we needed a price reduction.  I told him we needed to be priced at $265,900, and he balked at the suggestion.  He agreed to knock of ten-grand from the previous $285,000 list price, and we came back onto the market at $275,000.

The unit continued to sit on the market, as agent after agent, and buyer after buyer came through his humble abode, looked at the dishes in the sink, wondered why there was a thirty-foot uncoiled garden hose in the bedroom, and walked out without a thought in hell of ever living there.

I approached my seller again in February and told him nobody would ever pay $270,000 for his condo.

No way, no how.

He agreed to reduce the price….by $3,000.

We came back out on the market for $271,900, and I knew we’d experience more of the same.

On March 31st, our working relationship came to an end as he told me he would be re-listing the condo with another agent.

And as I sat in the conference room with this old man, holding a “Listing Agreement” in one hand, and a “Cancellation of Listing” form in the other, I really wasn’t sure what I was going to do.

When his condo was worth $275,000, he wanted to price it at $285,000.

When his condo was worth $265,000, he wanted to price it at $275,000.

And finally when his condo was worth $260,000, he wanted to price it at $271,900.

He chased the market down for almost four full months, and in the end, he still didn’t understand what was happening.

Seventy-Six agents showed this condo to seventy-six buyers, and I never got so much as a phone call from a cooperating agent.

I showed this unit last weekend to a client of mine, and the first thing we saw when we walked through the door was five pairs of wet underwear hanging from the shower-rod in the bathroom, dripping onto the floor.

Oh yeah – he does own washer/dryer, but I’m sure it’s probably full of golf balls or something…

I explained to my (former) seller that the unit didn’t show well, and I figured if he’s gonna re-list the condo with somebody else, I might as well tell him what I really think.  I said, “Did it never occur to you that leaving wet underwear hanging in the bathroom on Saturday morning when you know we have showings, maybe isn’t a good idea?”

Despite being eighty-years-old, he still had a sharp sense of wit, and replied, “Are they buying my underwear or my condo?”

I told him, “Both.”

How a condo shows is almost as important as price.

When you’re overpriced, you’d better make damn sure that the condo is in pristine condition.

Had this condo been vacant and empty during my four month tenure as listing-agent, we surely would have received an offer, and I’d speculate that we would have sold it.

But seventy-six people stepped inside the condo and said “unh-uh, no way.”

Seventy-six.

When I tell agents in my office that staggering number, they all assume I’m exaggerating, as if to say, “We had like a thousand showings on the dang thing.”  But I’m not; we really had seventy-six showings.

This condo didn’t sell because it was over-priced, plain and simple.

And had we offered the condo for $271,900 when we first listed it last Fall, I’d say we’d have received some substantial interest and it probably would have sold.

But the owner elected to chase the market, and the rest is history…