November 11, 2024
“To be a buyer’s agent in this market, you have to know how to check all the boxes for victory.” Jess Young
In this industry, a proactive approach to serving clients is always preferred to get desired results.
And so it was for a late October closing, in which Sonoma County Properties agent Jess Young represented a buyer coming to Sonoma from the Bay Area looking to relocate between San Rafael and Petaluma.
The situation: a real estate agent in another county (where the buyer was coming from) needed a Sonoma County Realtor and asked for referrals from a lender the agent had worked with previously. The lender referred Jess Young to the other Realtor, and Jess quickly secured the buyer’s agreement to represent him.
Young had already set up a search portal for ‘Coming Soon’ listings, and found one within days that matched the buyer’s criteria and budget. Young called the agent with the listing that was not yet on the market.
The good news: the seller was already getting anxious, as they were contingent to buy another home, and would need to sell their Petaluma property quickly to be able to close on their next home purchase.
Young learned that the seller was planning to list their 1628-square-foot Petaluma home for $799,000. Young made an offer on behalf of his client for $820,000, which was accepted. He also negotiated a short inspection period in which he was able to pre-schedule all the inspections needed.
Young asked for new reports, plus the buyer wanted a chimney inspection, as a previous owner had closed off the fireplace and covered it with sheetrock and paint. When the reports came back, opinions varied on the expected longevity of the existing roof, which triggered a new round of negotiators between Young and his counterpart, the listing agent.
Young started out aggressively by asking for a $30,000 reduction from the proposed $820,000 acquisition price, but knew it was potentially too aggressive, as he had come to understand by studying comparable sales data that the seller was hoping to achieve a sale price of nearly $850,000.
The seller was suddenly confronted with a difficult choice: risk a quick sale – for some number above their listing price but not as close as they had hoped for at the upper end, or put it on the MLS, hope for a quick sale and a price considerably above their asking price – and possibly lose the home they were attempting to buy elsewhere.
Ultimately, the seller agreed to a $7,000 price reduction from the offer by Jess’s client and the sale was struck at $813,000.
The buyer even got an enviable mortgage rate for today’s lending standards: a 30-year, amortizing loan at 5.99%!
“We had a lot of things go right for a quick sale to happen. We had a motivated seller; a prepared and responsive buyer and we were able to address information as it came in and present it to the seller’s agent. We were able to buy this home for a reasonable price before it ever hit the market,” said Jess Young.
Serving Cloverdale, Graton, Healdsburg, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Tomales, Windsor and surrounding Sonoma County, CA areas.
The First step when selling your home is to set the right price for the current market conditions in your area.
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