While on the surface, 68 offers sounds great, but at the end of the day, there are 67 buyers who may have felt cheated out. Everyone of them upset. According to MLS records, this is the first and only sale the listing agent has made in Costa Mesa. Just one more reason to use a local Realtor- Kurt Galitski
This article is from the Orange County Register
Costa Mesa house gets 68 offers, almost $100K more
August 4th, 2009, 12:04 am · 148 Comments · posted by Marilyn Kalfus, real estate reporter
Realtor Genelle Geronsin thought if she priced a 3-bedroom house a few blocks north of Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa aggressively — at $399,000 — it would fetch 15-20 offers and sell for something in the mid-$400,000s.
Guess again!
She wound up with 68 offers. And the price? Not at all what she figured.
“I can tell you it went for almost $100,000 above asking,” said Geronsin, who will be able to reveal the exact amount when the sale closes in a few days.
The house was not bank-owned or a short sale, and the community does not have many of those, she says. “It is a neighborhood where people tend to stay a long time.”
The 1,268-square-foot home at 3099 Warren Lane was only on the market 3 weeks — a set deadline — and all the bids were sealed until they were opened with the seller, Geronsin says.
“There were actually three offers higher than this offer that we did not take,” she said. The seller wanted to focus on the whole financial picture, from FICO scores to what contingencies potential buyers would be willing to remove, in settling on a buyer.
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“This person (who got the house) was absolutely solid across the board,” Geronsin said. “That is what came down to being most important. The seller of the property decided they would rather have the peace of mind.”
(No, the winning bid was not an all-cash offer!)
Geronsin said she was only given three weeks to sell the home, but that worked to their advantage. If it had stayed on the market longer, she said, “After a certain amount of time, even today, at that price point, people will assume there’s something wrong with the house.”
Some agents will give prospective buyers a leg up by letting them know the amounts of other offers they received — which is acceptable — but going the sealed bid route is a lot less stressful, she says.
“I legitimately felt like the person who ultimately purchased the property did so without any assistance,” Geronsin said. “No one can be upset. Everybody was exactly in the same boat.”
