The photo below is of my happy, shocked clients when they heard that they got the house of their dreams….at an unreal price.

Two days later, and the smile on my face has yet to fade.  I can’t even imagine how elated they undoubtedly remain.

The follwing story is a perfect example of a strategy in real estate, and how it pays off…

I was thinking of a number of headlines for this post…

“Perfect Timing”

“Too Good To Be True?”

“Good Things Come To Those Who Wait”

But in the end, I felt “Deal Of The Century” is appropriate, since it’s the best deal I have ever got for a client of mine, and I’m still fielding calls from agents around Toronto asking me how we got this house at such a low price.

The answer to the question everybody keeps asking: timing.

However, it can all be traced back to strategy and perseverance—that of mine as a Realtor, and my clients’ as aggressive buyers.

Let’s back up a little bit, and allow me to introduce the happy couple.

Peter and Sarah came to me about five weeks ago and said they were extremely unhappy with their Realtor, who shortly thereafter became their former Realtor.  Their issue was with her lack of decisiveness, knowledge, and opinion with regards to properties in their target area.

The boiling point came when this Realtor neglected to inform them that offers for a house on Vanderhoof in Leaside was taking offers that night, which occured because she thought it was two days later!  Once incompetence was added to the list, they came to me.

I absolutely loved their idea: purchase an entry level house in one of the most sought-after neighborhoods in Toronto.  They had targeted North Toronto, Davisville Village, and Leaside, but I told them to narrow the search, and accept nothing less than Leaside.

Their budget was prime: $650,000.  This enabled us to look at semi-detached houses, which were selling between $550,000 – $700,000, and bungalows, which were tougher to find since they were being bought up by builders, but fell roughly into that sub-$700,000 bracket.

I told them we needed a strategy.

Unlike the experience with their previous agent, who approached real estate in a lackadasical, haphazard manner, I suggested, nay, demanded that we take an extremely aggressive approach.

It’s a tough market for buyers right now since there is such a lack of product.  And in Leaside, where there are only four-thousand homes, the buyers have even greater trouble getting their hands on a piece of real estate.

I told Sarah and Peter that we had to approach this situation as if their lives actually depended on getting a house, which in a way, it did….since they got engaged a week after we started working together!

What I meant was, we needed to be in contact every single day of the week.  We needed to see every single house that came onto the market, regardless of suitability or price, just to make sure we understood the market.  I told them to consider it an education in real estate.

I told them that absolutely NOTHING would get past me, and unlike their previous Realtor, I would have a new listing in their hands (or on their Blackberries) an hour after it came onto the market.  We would then view the property the very same day, and give ourselves a week to do our research, and make a decision.

Don’t forget, in Leaside (as with essentially any area or property in todays’ market), offers aren’t reviewed until “offer night” which is generally one week after the property comes onto the market.

Finally, I told them that we would make an offer on any and every suitable property, regardless of the circumstances.

If you take enough swings, sooner or later you’ll hit one out of the park.

Some buyers casually search real estate, and others are more active.

But with Sarah and Peter, and in the Leaside market, we were going to live and breathe real estate for as long as it took to get a house.

I began to email them every day with the new listings; those in Leaside and in surrounding areas that they weren’t actually interested in.  But again, this was all part of the education process, and we would see every single house.

They took a short trip down to Costa Rica, and subsequently got engaged, and the very day after they returned to Toronto, we were pressed into action.

A semi-detached house on Broadway Avenue in Leaside, priced at $589,000, was the perfect house for them.  The only issue was, they were reviewing offers that night!  We viewed the house, which luckily had done a pre-home inspection, and determined that we would offer $626,217.  The 2-17 number referred to their engagement date: February 17th.  (“awwwww”)

We were one of seven offers, and amazingly, even though we were almost $50,000 over the asking price, we had the lowest offer and we lost by $85,000!

The house sold for $710,000, making it the first semi-detached house in Leaside to ever sell for over $700,000.

Welcome to the market, guys!

The following week, the house two doors down came up for sale, also at $589,000.  This house wasn’t nearly as nice, but still sold for $667,000.  We had the second highest offer this time around, again, $626,217.

Then last week, 335 Sutherland Drive came onto the market.

What followed next marks the most amazing thing that has ever happened to a client of mine…

(TO BE CONTINUED)