When you start building a list of desirable lot features in Fairview or Lucas, it always starts with big, mature trees. Those are almost exclusively found around creeks in dry north Texas the home is probably going to be on a creek or creek bed.
Privacy in the back yard is also a feature near the top of the wanted list with many buyers. Because solid wood stockade fences are not allowed in any of the newer developments, it takes some time for landscaping to mature and provide screening from the neighbors next door.
Privacy gates are also very popular. Many homeowners enjoy driving in their gate and leaving the world behind and without being bothered by solicitors.
So when we list a home on a lot with all of these features, like 475 Blondy Jhune, we’re pretty confident we’re going to be able to sell it and near the top of the market. It all comes down to pricing of course, and we can’t go too high or we’ve priced the home out of the market.
We spoke with the owner of 475 Blondy Jhune in Lucas a year or so ago and they weren’t quite ready to sell. But they realized they had a great opportunity to maximize their profit when they saw the flurry of buyer activity and the prices we were getting on our sales this year. They decided the time was right so we picked up the discussion again.
We’ve built our reputation selling beautiful custom homes (some of our notable sales) but pricing is an art, not a science. With many of these homes we hit it pretty closely on pricing right from the start and others we had to make a price reduction somewhere along the line. Sometimes we had to make more than one, but I can’t think of one home that we didn’t get everything we possibly could for our sellers.
475 Blondy Jhune Rd was priced at $2.29 Million. It was built in 1999 by Paul Billingsly, one of the highly regarded custom home builders of days past. It was on 3.4 acres and backed up to a creek. We didn’t have any exact comparables so we just got it out there to see what happened. Without any real interest after three weeks, we discussed lowering the price with the seller. They agreed to drop it to $2.1 million and we found the buyer fairly quickly.
By the way, we normally don’t suggest sellers make a price drop on $2 million homes after just three weeks. We know homes like that usually take quite a bit lot longer to sell because there are fewer buyers, but in this case, we felt pretty sure the market was headed for a correction, and in hindsight, it was.
There are some good lessons here for those of you thinking about selling your home …
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If your home has been listed for at least 30 to 45 days and isn’t getting good showings or at least one reasonable offer, it’s always one of three things, no exceptions … It isn’t being professionally marketed, it’s overpriced, or it’s a combination of the two. It’s NOT the agent.
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You have to be honest about your home. Listen to your agent. If it needs updating, it needs updating. 475 Blondy Jhune was built in 1999 so it’s 22 years old. Buyers are going to build that price in when they make their offer. If no-one makes an offer, you probably aren’t within 5% of where it will eventually sell, especially in a market we’ve just come out of.
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When you get a reasonable offer on the higher priced homes, TRY TO MAKE THE DEAL! You might only have one or two chances all year to sell your home. Don’t squander those chances or you might find yourself sitting on it for another year.
As always, we appreciate the seller choosing The Grisak Group to sell their home. There are lots of choices out there so we never take that decision for granted.
Sean Elliott did a great job working with the seller and the buyer agent, Paige Owens, was also wonderful to work with. It always helps when you have agents who understand this Lucas and Fairview area on each side of the deal because it really is a unique and very niche area.
Here are a few pictures of the home …
