Selling luxury homes in places like Creighton Farms and Grenata, just south of Leesburg, means going all out when it comes to Presentation & Promotion. If you haven't read my Seller's guide, on some of the steps I go through to list homes in today's tough market, you can check it out here.
But you can follow every step in that guide and still stumble sometimes. Pricing and Promotion are just two "P's"... There's another, and that's Persistence! And the story of marketing and selling this luxury home in Grenata certainly exemplifies Persistence!
My clients LOVE Grenata! They love it so much, they decided to move... to a NEW build still in Grenata! So they purchased a vacant lot in the community after deciding their current home along Grenata Preserve Place would no longer serve their multigenerational family's needs. After getting Creighton Enterprises to build them a new property more suited to them, they moved out of their existing home and together, we spent a few months getting it ready to list.
My clients removed EVERYTHING but a Ferrari from their garage!
We met in late January and agreed their vacant luxury home wouldn't be as appealing as a professionally staged one filled with furniture, so I engaged one of my trusted professional stagers to take a tour of the home and provide a recommended plan on furnishings and artwork that would help make their home look even more beautiful and NEW. For this home, we actually used TWO stagers, with the second stager focusing on incorporating the French Provincial styled lighting throughout the property which really worked well with my clients' taste and style! The use of the second stager to meet my clients needs really put this home over the top, and her team moved in several rooms' worth of furniture and artwork before we proceeded with professional pictures and video.
This room serves as a "great room" for the property and the neutral wall color, vaulted ceilings and pops of blue in the couch cushions and artwork offered a soothing vibe for visitors on tour.
At the beginning of March, this property was READY to be shown! I looked forward to personally meeting every single one of the visitors, as I wanted to be on hand to observe their behavior and listen to their conversations - after all - this is what yielded me success in pleasing my clients with the stager, right? Furthermore, with a property over $2 Million, I didn't think it would be wise to simply leave a lockbox on the front door and trust that all appointments would work out well.
The FIRST Offer
The very first day this property was ACTIVE, several individual buyer showings had been scheduled and by 9 pm (on a Friday), I received a generous offer OVER list price by one of the buyer's agents. But, we had lined up two days of open houses on Saturday and Sunday. The buyers agent urged us to cancel our Open Houses (to minimize competition most likely). But I continued to professionally confirm that I would indeed share their offer with my clients, while also abide by the my sellers' agreed upon schedule (with respect to individual showing appointments and open houses) to ensure my clients were in the best possible negotiating position. After many showings over the weekend and multiple offers, we did end up accepting the first offer from Friday, but in a much stronger position with other potential buyers in the wings... more to come on this in a minute!
Now, I tell all of my clients who live in communities with Home Owner's Associations (HOA's) that once an offer becomes ratified, the Residential Sales Contract in Virginia stipulates (in paragraph 8), that the buyer may "cancel the contract within three days, or up to seven days... after receiving the association disclosure packet or being notified that the disclosure packet will not be available". So, as a matter of practice, I try very hard to get HOA disclosure packages to buyers' agents immediately after ratifying offers, in the event their buyers decide they want to change their mind. I don't want my listings to get pulled off the market and miss other potential offers as the current buyers debate with each other whether or not they want to move forward with their purchase.
As it so happened, with this listing, on the second day the home was under contract, the buyers' agent texted me to request a SECOND private showing for his clients... and asked that I NOT meet them at the property. Intuitively, I knew something seemed OFF. And so, I told the buyers' agent I would happily meet him and his clients on the premises for their "confidential" tour, but that I would remain in the kitchen, available to answer any questions. At this point, I decided that perhaps one of the OTHER buyers who had not acted so quickly to submit a written offer might like to submit one as a backup, and I was able to reach out to their agent to get them to submit an offer that my clients could sign. I took care of the paperwork in the afternoon and then met the first set of buyers and their agent at 6 pm.
The buyers, their agent, and an entourage of extended family and friends, met me at the front door and proceeded to avoid making eye contact with me throughout their half-hour visit. By the morning, I received a "VOID OF CONTRACT" notice from the buyers' agent, based on the HOA disclosure packet. Whether it was something in the disclosure packet, or they had just changed their mind, it didn't really matter. They were within their rights, but it just re-affirmed that I was correct in NOT cancelling the other showings and open houses.
The SECOND Offer
The second set of buyers who ratified on this home received the HOA disclosure package immediately and didn't have any issues fortunately! However, they had negotiated to conduct a home inspection with their contract (the first buyers had not) and had 15-days to complete it, with a "VOID ONLY" option. These buyers had spoken to me a lot during their multiple visits to the property and had also called me to personally thank me for facilitating their offer as the official backup contract. All SEEMED well, until the home inspection was actually conducted.
The home inspector (whom I had never heard of previously and whose report was not well written) had indicated that one of the basement bedrooms didn't have a heat source that met current code - the air duct was in a closet versus the bedroom. This apparently motivated the buyers to call Loudoun County's Permits department to ask for a record of all permits that had been granted for the property. Their agent called me to advise they were having "second thoughts" and so, I asked my clients whether they had done any work to the basement during their tenure, as pictures from the 2006 purchase weren't very comprehensive. My clients advised they had purchased the home with MOST of the basement finished by the builder, but they conducted a number of upgrades to the basement and backyard patio/entertainment area in 2015, and their third-party vendors (whom they paid handsomely for their efforts) had taken care of all the permits for these upgrades.
Large basement with travertine flooring (no permits needed to change out flooring!)
I called the County's permits department to verify all permits had been closed, but learned that unfortunately, the third-party vendor hadn't called for a few "Final Inspections" some eight years earlier and shared this news with my clients, who were extremely frustrated. My clients and I agreed the best course of action would be to create an addendum to this sales contract confirming all open permits would be closed before settlement, and costs for additional inspections and/or work needed by outside electricians or HVAC vendors would be borne by my clients, versus the buyers, to ensure they took care of everything before signing over the title. Days went by and on the last day of the home inspection contingency, the buyers' agent submitted a "VOID OF CONTRACT".
The THIRD Offer
Knowing I would be asked, "What's wrong with your listing?", if I put it back on the market immediately, I recommended to my clients that they get an independent appraisal and an independent home inspection conducted, as we worked through the open permits. I also reached out to several of the OTHER buyers' agents who had visited the property three weeks earlier, to let them know the property was going to be "fully available" again - and we would share all information about the property (home inspection, appraisal, permit documentation) - as well as remain FIRM on our list price. In addition to getting an independent appraiser's valuation of the property to confirm the list price, the second buyers' agent shared his clients' bank's appraisal, which also validated the list price!
When we put the home back on the market, we immediately got more individual showings, did More open houses.... and got MORE offers!! Unfortunately, the offers were just below list price. Buyers were signaling they thought "something was wrong", when in reality, NOTHING was wrong. We had simply run into two uncommitted buyers who weren't able to go to closing. This is always the fear when a house goes on the market and doesn't sell quickly, which is why preparation (my 3 Ps) is so critical to do before listing time!
But, third time's a charm! Our third and final ratified contract did indeed make it to closing within one month of ratification. The third buyer had actually planned on making an offer the first time I showed the home, but was unable to write an offer on it at the time, because they had a property to sell in a different state that hadn't gone under contract yet. By the time he visited this house some 45 days later, his property had gotten a contract and his corporate relocation package enabled him to put a contract on this one! And because he was getting a corporate relocation package, his offer stipulated my clients would have to allow him to get (yet another!) home inspection and (yet another!) appraisal conducted. However, we were very confident about the home inspection and the appraisal process because we had plenty of practice over the past seven weeks! LOL. Passed with flying colors!
Always love posting this picture!
My clients closed on their property for $2,150,000, which was $50,000 below list price - but $350,000 higher than the last comparable sale in the neighborhood (for a like-sized home)!
Persistence is digging deeper. If selling a $2M+ home were easy, everyone would do it, right!!!???
Here's the Adrenaline video we produced, which got promoted across YouTube, Facebook and Instagram getting thousands of views in just a few hours, and syndicated globally to luxury buyers.
If you live in this area, give me a call! I'd love to talk to put all my energy, knowledge and resources to work for you, just like I did with this home!
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