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Determining a list price for a home is often difficult, and my client Anne Roda’s house was one of those, it was rather unique in that it had originally been built as a vacation cabin in the early 1900’s on Pritchard Island in South East Seattle, which way back then had been a separate island and hot vacation spot as it was so close to Lake Washington.
Anne’s house was one of the smallest on the street surrounded by much larger homes many with unobstructed lake views. Her two-bedroom, one-bath home had a finished basement with a separate kitchen and bath, which she had been renting for several years as an apartment. However, the apartment was not legal as the basement windows were not big enough to allow egress.
I was aware that recently a buyer had reported a seller to the city for advertising their house as having a separate apartment and the city had the seller take out the kitchen and bathroom!
So, I wanted to protect Anne, but also make buyers aware of the extra space, so I marketed it as a potential Airbnb, or additional living space. The next buyer could do whatever they wanted.
Many folks in Seattle rent their finished basements and stay under the radar. But they do run the risk of a disgruntled tenant reporting them, or even worse something happening like a fire and a tenant not being able to get out the window.
Anne was downsizing to an apartment be closer to her son and his wife and young grandchild who lived in Ballard, the drive was just getting too much for her.
She had lived in her house for 15 years, so she had a lot of stuff, plus she had inherited her mother’s possessions, some of which were quite valuable, including furniture and artwork, so an estate sale was necessary. Before Anne hired me in late March, she had interviewed several estate sale folks, but some were booked for the dates she needed, or too expensive and one was quite snooty.
Luckily given my connections I was able to find her a good company, who were less expensive and likeable, and could do the sale quickly. As we really wanted to get the house on the market by early May.
Her 1919 craftsman was very charming, with beautiful landscaping and it backed on to a green belt, so it was in a lovely setting. It had been remodeled by the previous owner in the 1990’s with vaulted ceilings, which made the living space feel bigger than it really was, but it was somewhat dated and felt rather dark.
Once the sale happened and Anne moved out with the furniture she wanted to keep. I was able to get my team in to paint the living room, in a warm off-white as it was quite dark, clean the carpets and thoroughly clean the house. I then staged the house with an eclectic mix of traditional & contemporary furniture and the house looked great.
We decided to give the house a week to look at offers, lots of potential buyers came to the Friday, Saturday and Sunday open houses and two agents had pre-inspections done. Given the enthusiasm from agents and buyers I expected to get several offers. As four agents had contacted me and said they were going to submit. However, having been an agent for a long time, I know you must see the offers first before getting too excited.
One potential buyer who was a lender even tried to bribe me, by suggesting she would refer wealthy buyers to me, if I would write the offer for her and have Anne look at it sooner! I told the buyer that I do not do dual agency and she should get her own agent and that we were going to stick to the offer review date. Needless, to say I never heard from her again, this was a first for me!
We ended up with two that were both over the list price, but one was higher with better financing, so Anne decided to accept that one. I was a little concerned about the appraisal, but it came in at the sales price and we closed within three weeks.
