I had to do a double-take yesterday morning when I first looked at the new listings in C01 & C08.

I was planning to show a Richmond Street condo last night, and suddenly there was a second listing for the exact same model unit!

Would you believe me if I said that within fifteen minutes, there was a third?

You’d better believe it, or else this story isn’t going anywhere…

Does anybody else play fantasy football?  Or am I the only geek in the room?

Fantasy football is a multi-million-dollar business with participants all around the world.  Everybody, it seems, plays fantasy football, even my female colleague who is almost as sports-obsessed as I am.

Of course, I like to get up on my high horse and say, “I’ve been playing fantasy football since 1999!  Way before all you posers!”

Not that it matters, however…

In my league, we have a never-ending argument about the concept of luck as it pertains to our successes and failures.

There are so many unforeseen events during the course of the NFL football season, ranging from injuries, suspensions, position battles, upsets, and of course, players performing better or worse than expected when you spent hours studying for your draft in the summer.

Luck plays an important role in our fantasy football world, but none of us can agree on just how much of a role that is.

Luck also plays a huge role in the real estate market when you find yourself in a position to sell your property, and just like fantasy football, there are unforeseen events that can make or help or hinder your sale.

On Monday night, it was raining cats and dogs in New York.  The Jets were playing the Vikings on Monday Night Football, and the game had to be delayed for an hour because of lightning!

The field was soaked, and the rain continued to pour down.

Many of us were expecting a soggy, sloppy, 10-3 football game with little action in this torrential rain.

This would have been great for me, since I had a thirteen-point lead, and my opponent had only his kicker to play.

But at the drop of a hat, the rains stopped, and the game ended in a 29-22 victory for the Jets, who saw their kicker make FIVE successful field goals!

Only the bad weather could have saved me, but luck was not on my side.

Conversely, good weather is something we real estate agents pray for when we have a hot new listing that necessitates a public open house.  You never know what kind of weather you’re going to get, and a bright, sunny, warm day in October might produce 50-60 people through your house, whereas a miserable rainy day might see you sitting alone for two hours; perhaps watching football…

But as a property-seller, the single largest unforeseen event that could hinder the potential sale of your property is the subsequent listing of a similar property at the same time.  This is completely out of your control, and it all depends on luck.

Last Friday, a new listing came out on Richmond Street that caught the eye of one of my buyer-clients.

We knew it would likely be a slow weekend due to Thanksgiving, and while she was interested, she wasn’t dying to see it, so we decided to wait until Tuesday to have a look.

The listing was for a 1-bedroom condo of about 600 square feet for $319,900.

It looked “okay” on paper, and it would really have to blow us away for us to make a move.

On Tuesday morning, I was going through the new listings at about 10:30AM when I saw what I thought to be the exact same listing; only it wasn’t.  It was almost the exact same listing, as it was in the same building, for the same sized unit, of the identical layout.  The price was the same too: $319,900, and while it had a much bigger balcony, it didn’t have a parking.

I did a search for all available units at this building just to be sure, and there it was – two identical units for sale at the same price.

I went upstairs to make a few photocopies, and then went to talk shop with my fashion consultant on the third floor.

About twenty minutes later, I logged back on to MLS and saw that the new listings had gone from “42” to “54.”  I scrolled through the $300’s and to my absolute shock was ANOTHER unit at this Richmond Street building, almost as identical as the other two!

This one was priced at $309,900, and had a parking space as well.

What are the odds?

There were now three identical units for sale in the same building, all one floor apart.

This changed everything.

Simple supply and demand, folks!

If there is one unit available for sale in Building X, and there are 100 potential buyers for it, the equilibrium shifts if suddenly the supply triples as two more of the identical unit come out for sale at the same time.  Assuming one of those 100 buyers is interested, he now gets to pick and choose.  He has the sellers at his mercy, and can play one off the next.

That’s what I would do.

I’d work my way to a substantial discount off the ticket price!  You can offer on one unit, and threaten to go down the hall if they don’t accept your offer!  You can tell them you talked to so-and-so two floors up and that they’re begging for an offer!

No matter how nice their condo is, you can say that you preferred the colour of the cabinets in the unit down the hall, or that you valued the larger outdoor space with the unit downstairs over the presence of the parking space.

These three units had identical floor plans, but different features and finishes.

It was the same condo three times over, with different frills.

The pricing was different, but when you mix in the lockers, parking spaces, and finishes, perhaps you can wiggle a few thousand dollars each way.

But imagine being the seller of one of those condos and seeing that you now have two competing units listed the same day?

How’s that for luck?

There’s honestly nothing you can do, and nothing you could have done to prevent it!

Oh yes, we can accurately predict the weather, but unless you send out a questionnaire to your 300 neighbours asking, “Do you have plans to list your condo for sale in the next two days?”  There is no way you can predict competition.

I feel terrible for these sellers, but they can’t abandon ship.

In theory, I suppose you could pull your unit off the market, let the two existing listings battle it out for buyers and in-turn determine the market price, then come back a few weeks later and hope to pick up any buyers that may have missed out.

But when you think about how much preparation goes into listing your condo (timing, staging, moving, bridge financing), suddenly finding a Plan-B doens’t sound like a viable option.

Ironically, my buyer-client didn’t like any of the three units for sale.  Or I should say, she didn’t like the unit, all three times we saw it.

But I will be watching this one very closely to see how it pans out!