Any tips on selling a McMansion in a down market?

[nsu1997 0]

Got a semi-luxury house under C.A. since the summer and haven't been able to sell this thing for the life of me. $470k house, $2300/mo rent. Great custom house that shows very well. I've shown it, and had several interested parties but so far no luck. One guy's credit sucked too bad, the rest pulled out, with most of them blaming the economy and associated fears.

 

So far I've tried handwritten "rent to own" bandit signs and the usual free internet stuff (Craigslist, Vflyer, etc). I need some creative ideas to get this house in front of the 6-figure income households here in the DC area. Any ideas?

[MichaelC 160]

There are two primary reasons why a property isn't moving: either your terms are wrong, or your marketing is missing your target market. So, first question is how sure are you about the terms? Are the asking price and rent in line with the market?

What is the neighborhood like? Is this the most expensive property in the area? A $470K house in a $350K neighborhood will be an uphill battle.

What are you hearing in terms of feedback from those who see the house?

As for getting the property in front of the six figure households in the area, considering how expensive it is to live in and around DC-VA-MD, I suspect most households fall into that category.

[pilot76180 51]

That isn't too high of a price I wouldn't think.

ESPECIALLY for $2300 a month!!! WOW!!

In my neck of the woods, we'd have that for $4295 or so.

I would say..in my opinion, that you don't get many people making $150k a year that will respond to a hand written bandit sign....but...you never know....

I'd get that up on other webistes like Trulia, Zillow, rentals.com etc.

[nsu1997 0]

Thanks for the feedback guys. The house is located in a subdivision of similar custom homes. The few people I've shown it to were interested and even submitted applications along with the app fee; one we rejected because of piss poor credit, another decided to wait until the economy improved, another decided the rent plus utilities may be too much. In other words these people would have likely struggled to make the payments anyway.

 

I just ran comps for the first time since I landed the deal back in the summer. Prices have fallen! I'm now priced above retail by about 10%! I realized because I'm selling on terms means I can sell it for a bit of a premium (because I'm making it easy to buy) but perhaps 10% over market is pushing it. I think the rent is reasonable, plus I'm offering $500/mo rent credit toward the purchase price.

 

Going back to the seller to renegotiate the sales price. He may need to work the sales price down. Although I've found most lease option tenant/buyers are MUCH more concerned with the monthly payment than they are the sales price. But everything has a limit I guess.

 

In the meantime, anyone got any other creative marketing ideas? I already blasted it out on vFlyer which automatically posts it on dozens of sites including zillow, trulia, hotpads, etc.

[speedingpenguin 19]

postlets, sellpoint, facebook, ebay, youtube...... all free :-)

[MichaelC 160]

Not surprised to hear the value has decreased. It's important to get the price in line with the market. By all means, get back to the homeowner and let him know the market and what his options are, (basically to reduce his price or sit on the property for many months). I'd also fatten up that rent credit. $500 on a $2,300 rent isn't much, a bit more than 20%. As you noted, t/b's are less concerned with total purchase price and more concerned with whether or not they can afford the monthly nut. Rent credits feed into that.