Wishful thinking or just clueless?
The lack of huge subdivisions filled with cookie-cutter tract homes in the greater Seattle area makes it harder to find identical floorplans for sale in the the same area. But I stumbled upon two on Bainbridge Island that are in the same tract, even if the sellers live in two different worlds.
Listing #1
Asking price is $629k, but it's been on the market for 83 days.
Listing#2
Asking price is $667k, only on the market for 10 days.
Same floorplan, same tract, same lot size. While there does appear to be 44 more square feet in this house does that really justify an asking price that is $38,000 higher than the same house around the corner? Especially one that hasn't sold in almost 3 months?
Looking further, I see the homeowner has listed with a "do-it-yourself" service rather than a realtor. I wonder if a realtor suggested an asking price the owner didn't like and they decided they could do better on their own?
At any rate, it'll be interesting to watch these two and see if they race to the bottom over the next few weeks.
Listing #1
Asking price is $629k, but it's been on the market for 83 days.
Listing#2
Asking price is $667k, only on the market for 10 days.
Same floorplan, same tract, same lot size. While there does appear to be 44 more square feet in this house does that really justify an asking price that is $38,000 higher than the same house around the corner? Especially one that hasn't sold in almost 3 months?
Looking further, I see the homeowner has listed with a "do-it-yourself" service rather than a realtor. I wonder if a realtor suggested an asking price the owner didn't like and they decided they could do better on their own?
At any rate, it'll be interesting to watch these two and see if they race to the bottom over the next few weeks.
Comments
Does the lamer landscaping job, no walkway to the front door, closer proximity to the neighbors on the right justify a substantial discount below the 629k house?
If anything, it's helping the 629k house find a GF.
I think the walkway comes off the driveway, but in the picture it's being obscured by the grass. But yes, I'd add your items to the list of reasons why this house is over-priced.
um.... "GF"?
Eureka! Same seller for both houses. Cant' sell either. So here's what he does. Overprices the first house, then overprices the second one more. That creates demand. Pent up demand! Voila, first house sells and second house doesn't, but then the second wasn't going to sell anyways.
One could have 100,000 more work to do or already done.
Do they both face the same direction (aspect)
Are they on the same road?
Does one have a rubbish neighbor
Standard of bathrooms, kitchen carpets flooring.
Painting, roofing.
Decking, landscaping.
Does one have a great view!
maybe one home has cats, and twenty kids tearing the ass out of it.
Get a grip guys, market could be going up down or sideways, but Each house DOES have a different value.
That value might be 100G under the current asking but the homes are not the same.
btw the cheaper one looks better from the mug shot.
I've actually been to this tract. I'm a big fan of Gladu's designs, so I drove out to see them after moving to Kirkland from Salem. Clicking on the pictures will take you to the listings themselves, but the pictures don't answer all of your questions so I'll give it a shot.
1.The expensive house faces west, the other north.
2.It's a contiguous loop, so...yes. But the more expensive one is closer to the main road that feeds into the tract.
3.Possible, but driving through there on a Saturday afternoon made me think of Stepford more than Compton.
4.The interiors (as seen in the pictures) are almost identical. Color variations aside, these are twins.
5.Same, same.
6.Same for both, but the cheaper one made better choices on plants. The more expensive one has a nicer fence, but it need some love.
7.They all have great views....of each other. The tract is (for now) surrounded by tall pines.
Feline occupancy and breeding habits aside, anyone trying to sell a house will do their best to hide/remedy that kind of thing.
Of course each home has a different value, but in setting an asking price it looks like one seller is deluding themselves. I can't see anything that makes one house worth $40k more than the comp around the corner. Even if the better priced home has been a meth lab for the last 6 months, you would still be better off calling in COIT than spending that much more for the pristine home. One of these two is pricing to sell, the other is either unaware that the market is dropping out from under him or too lazy to take a walk through his own neighborhood.
While it may be true that both homes are being sold by the same person and this is just a trick to clear one off the books, the tax records say otherwise. There could be a number of small differences between the two homes. There could be multiple reasons for the sellers to start at different values in asking price. I'm just not seeing enough to justify a 10% premium.
What happens with these two homes could be a forecast for the larger SFH market. One was just listed, the other has been on the market for a few months. If "want" to sell becomes "need" to sell, the competition between these two homes could show how far prices are going to drop in the near term. As these are newer homes in an affluent area, they might predict what the future holds for all the McMansions in other suburban areas.
What I don't see is either one selling anytime soon. The longer they sit, the greater the pressure will be to reduce their price. The question is....where's the bottom?
Top drawer.