Real Estate Information

By SUSAN SCHOENBERGER Special to The Courant

December 13, 2009

When David Chzaszcz put his family's four-bedroom Tolland house up for sale in September, he took his real estate agent's advice and listed it at $449,000, even though he was hoping it would sell for a higher price.

"Our house was listed for, technically, less than a week and a half," Chzaszcz says. "We had eight or nine people come through. ... Four made offers."

After a bidding war that drove the price ever higher, the Chzaszczs closed on their house in November for a final sale price of $470,000.

If it seems like a risky strategy, it's not, according to several real estate agents who have used it recently. What people forget, agents say, is that a seller isn't required to accept an offer, even if it's for the full asking price.

Chzaszcz's agent, Rob Giuffria of Prudential Premier Homes in Farmington, tells clients that pricing slightly below market value will generate the kind of traffic that creates a flurry of interest among buyers in the crucial early days that the house is on the market.

"You have the most amount of leverage as the seller in the first 15 days," he says. "When you have people looking at your house, they have to believe that if they don't buy the house, someone else will."

Too often, Giuffria says, a house is listed at the price the homeowner wants to get, which is usually on the hopeful side. Sometimes, that's the result of real estate agents' telling a homeowner what they want to hear to get the listing.

"If I came in and said your home is worth $500,000, you're going to be pretty receptive," he says. "There's an inherent bias in agents' overpricing homes to get listings."

But an overly optimistic listing price may leave a house languishing on the market, which often results in a drop in price, Giuffria says. That puts the advantage with the buyer and may result in a final sale significantly below the lowered list price.

Reluctant Homeowners

Raymond Romero, who is based in West Hartford and works for William Raveis Real Estate, says that agents have to know the market and how many buyers might be interested in a particular property before they recommend a particular listing price.

"Most people want to know: How long is it going to take to sell?" Romero says. "I tell them, 'I have a price where I can sell it in one hour, one day, one week, one month, one year.' ... You try to find out from an owner's perspective their time frame."

Romero agrees with Giuffria that agents often compete for listings by telling homeowners that their homes can sell for a price that may reflect wishful thinking more than the actual market.

"As an agent, I have to be prepared to walk away from a listing price that I don't believe will sell the property," Romero says.

He also agrees that listing a house below market value can be a great strategy, but one that can be a tough sell to clients, even when it may be in their best interest.

"Once you get people interested in the property, it becomes a pride issue. ... I've noticed that it really does work," Romero says. "But on the listing side, it's a much harder discussion to have: 'How am I going to put it below to get a higher price?'"

Romero says he tells his clients that the lower price will generate more interest in the property and trigger competition among buyers.

"You have to use psychology in this business," he says.

Take It Or Leave It

While Giuffria is sold on the general principle of listing a house at about 98 percent of market value, he says only about 20 percent of his clients will try the strategy.

"Most sellers view agents as just wanting to sell a house at any price," he says. "So you have to have a high degree of trust with the seller and the listing broker."

In the case of a buyer offering full price with no other offers, the seller can choose to take the offer or not.

"Most sellers are under the mistaken belief that if someone offers them list price, they have to sell their home," Giuffria says. "You can just say, 'I don't accept your offer.'"

Romero agrees.

"No one can force you to accept it," he says.

A Long-Term View

Joseph Stafford of Joseph Stafford Associates in West Hartford has been in the real estate business for 42 years.

"I've been up and down this roller coaster a few times," he says.

In this market, Stafford says, it's more important than ever to price competitively. Sellers have a short window to generate interest among the small group of buyers waiting to see whatever comes on the market.

"Once something stays on the market for a couple of months," he says, "no one is going to pay the list price."

Stafford recently listed a house near West Hartford Center, for example, for $369,900 and quickly sold it for $385,000 after a bidding war. If the house had been overpriced, he says, the bidding war never would have happened.

"There's not a lot of competition for good listings," he says. "In the first five or six days, if you're going to have a bidding war, that's usually when it happens."

Stafford also recently listed a house in the Elmwood section of West Hartford for $199,900 and sold it for $204,900. If the sellers had listed it at the price they wanted, he says, the house may have sold for a lot less.

"There's an old saying," Stafford says: "The one that expects the most usually ends up with the least."

Copyright © 2009, The Hartford Courant

Rob,

Following the closing of our house at 25 Strawfield Rd in Farmington, I wanted to write this note of appreciation and recommendation.

The sale of our house was a critical aspect of our relocation to Texas.  Helping us navigate through our relocation package and maximize our benefits was a top priority.  Despite a low demand in our price range in Farmington, we were able to get a contract within 60 days. 

Throughout the process, I never doubted your ability to close, and in the end, you found the buyer and got it done.  From contract signing to closing day, everything was smooth.  Your knowledge and foresight were critical throughout the process.  I would highly recommend your services to anybody considering selling or buying in the Farmington Valley or anywhere in Connecticut.

Please feel free to share this note with potential clients and don’t hesitate to list me as a reference should the need arise.

Please do stay in touch.

Best regards,

Martin Balleux
Flower Mound, TX

martinballeux@hotmail.com

Rob,

Please feel free to use me a reference related to your superior work.

My wife Cidalia and I felt secure in engaging your services right from the first meeting; other agents were friendly and knowledgeable, but none demonstrated the focused approach and drive that you displayed.  We weren't looking for a sympathetic ear, we were looking for someone who would "drive" the sale of our home while we relocated 500 miles away.  We got what we contracted for!

Not only did our house sell in 6 days for above the list price, but your management of the offers, brokers, and logistics, allowed us to concentrate on establishing ourselves in Pittsburgh.   And this was all done in the middle of the double dip 2009 recession.

Your strategies for negotiating, who to leave out of the negotiations, who to seek best and finals from, and which agents are holding back potential gain, were executed to perfection.

I would recommend you highly, and will seek your advice should I need to move from Pittsburgh in the future.

Regards,

David Chzaszcz
Senior Program Director, Global IT
Mylan, Inc.
1500 Corporate Drive
Canonsburg, PA  15317

Direct: 724.514.1444
Mobile: 412.584.

{An email to a prospective listing client.}

"This is my fifth home and I've worked with a different realtor each time. Quite simply, Rob is a superstar, far and away the best I've retained. He knows his craft and he's absolutely dogged -- one example of many, he actually brought potential buyers into the home of folks who had wanted to make an offer on my house but were having trouble getting theirs sold through their own realtor. Rob has also been extremely diligent and helpful with all the details, like getting repair folks in and out of the house, etc., that other realtors wouldn't do or would do badly. I credit entirely his tenacity with getting my house under contract in this very difficult market. I generally do not give endorsements, but I have no hesitation in recommending Rob to you. Good luck and feel free to call me tonight if you have additional questions. David."
David, Attorney in West Hartford 

"July 19 - To whom it may concern: Rob Giuffria served as our realtor during our recent relocation from Florida and did a fantastic job. Despite the fact that we had only a limited time to look for a house Rob was able to utilize the internet and the one weekend we had in CT. to: 1. Show us a large number of houses in a short time frame. 2. Help us zero in on the particular neighborhood we wanted to focus on. 3. Narrow down our search to a few houses. 4 Determine what an appropriate price point for the various houses. (important for people who are relocating and don’t know the local market) 5. Help us conclude a deal on a house that met our needs. I think Rob is uniquely equipped to address the needs of the relocating client. He and his company would be assets to your organization in terms of helping to recruit potential new physicians and other providers and enabling to find homes once they decide to come. Thank you very much. Sincerely yours, Kenneth A. Merkatz, M.D., F.A.C.C."

Published: Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The Journal Inquirer  | Harlan Levys Consumer Diary

Over the weekend my wife and her brother finally succeeded in selling their late mother’s 45-year-old house in Armonk, N.Y., after months on the market starting last summer. The sale price was about $150,000 below its original list price.

What a bummer, especially since within a week of the listing a neighbor’s adult children had checked the house out a few times, complained about several problems, and ended up offering $75,000 less than the list price. But my brother-in-law was fed up with their endless dithering and flatly rejected them, sure that the list price would attract a buyer. He was so adamant that my wife couldn’t argue.

Wrong! No one even looked at it for weeks. Then, one couple saw it and expressed interest, only to withdraw, saying it was just too old. A few weeks ago two other couples seemed hot to trot. After a brief bidding war (actually just a skirmish) the winners, a nice couple from Queens, N.Y., with an infant, won by underbidding the other couple by $5,000 but promising to deal with whatever we left in the house — a major factor, since my wife abhorred the prospect of sifting through 40-plus years of stuff.

However, the whole ordeal could have been avoided, according to real estate agent Rob Giuffria, vice president of Prudential Premier Homes.

First offer = Best offer

“Based on statistics, the first offer that comes in on a house is your best chance of getting the highest sale price for your house,” Giuffria said, “although that wouldn’t be true if you had multiple offers very quickly when the house is listed at above what you think the market value is.”

Too bad a negative emotional reaction to the first potential buyers dictated what happened to my mother-in-law’s house.

Giuffria’s credo is that the list price has no material effect on the market value of a home, and if a home is priced correctly it will sell quickly.

“Most homeowners believe they’ll leave money on the table if they list their house at too low a price,” Giuffria said. “The fact is the list price has no material effect on the sale price of a home.”

Trend: List low, sell high

Here’s another trend Giuffria has observed and taken advantage of (which we could have used): listing a sale price below market value seems to draw sale prices above the list price.

“If you believe the market value, based on Realtors’ and other professionals’ opinions, is $300,000, I would recommend a list price of say $289,000,” Giuffria said. “What this does is that when someone looks at the house and likes the house, they know its worth more than the list price, and it makes them think about the true value of the house, and it creates a bidding war, which gives the sellers the best opportunity to get the most amount of money for their home.”

Giuffria has been an agent on two recent sales using that tactic.

• 7 Lawlor Road, Tolland, a four-bedroom, 2½ bath, 3,300-square-foot Colonial built in 1993 on 4.39 acres, in the Clayton Woods neighborhood.

“We listed it at $449,000 on Sept. 25, and the buyer signed a contract for $470,000 on Oct. 6,” Giuffria said. “We had three offers within the first 48 hours, and the second offer was the offer than won the house.”

The market value was probably in the high $450s or low $460s, he said, “but if we had priced the house at $495,000, my opinion is that we would have eventually sold the house in the mid $450s, and it would have taken 90 days or so.”

The buyer’s bank supported the $470,000 price for the house, Giuffria said, so the buyer wasn’t overpaying, “and we got all of this done much more quickly than if we had priced it higher.”

• 41 Balsam Landing, Glastonbury: a four-bedroom, 2½-bath, 3,294-square-foot Colonial built in 2003 on 2 acres.

It was listed at $639,900 on May 2, 2008, and was sold for $651,000 on May 5. The house was finally appraised at $682,000.

“In my opinion the market value was in the $660,000 to $670,000 range,” Giuffria said. “We’re not sure if the agent purposely listed it too low, but I can tell you the homeowners weren’t happy when they saw the final appraisal at 682, and the buyer was extremely happy with the instant equity of the difference.”

Giuffria’s conclusion: You have to price right and just because you list the house at a higher price than you should doesn’t mean you’re going to sell it at a higher price.

“About 80 percent of homeowners list their homes at prices that are above what their real estate agents recommend,” Giuffria added.

As for the overall housing market in the state, Giuffria said the market under $500,000 is “steady and trending better The market between $500,000 and $800,000 is “pretty soft, and over $800,000 is abysmal.”

Indeed, he said, some of the best deals are for homes over $1 million.

Here are home sale and median sale price numbers for three towns, comparing January through July 2008 to the same period in 2009:

From $200,000 to $500,000:

East Hartford: 2008: 55, $230,000. 2009: 29, median price $222,000.

Somers: 2008: 25, $308,000. 2009: 26, $335,000.

Tolland: 2008: 57, $304,000. 2009: 37, $286,000.

From $500,000 to $1 million:

East Hartford: none.

Somers: 2008: 1, $508,000. 2009: 2, $518,000.

Tolland: 2008: 2, $506,000. 2009: 1, $515,000.

$1 million and up:

None in the three towns.

East Hartford, Somers, Tolland: none.

August 22

Dear Rob:

Hope all is well with you. I wanted to take a few minutes to send a quick note of appreciation to you and summarize why I was so pleased with your representation of Stacy I in the sale of our house.

As you know, we had listed our house with a major regional firm here in West Hartford for over 5 months. Despite numerous showings and supposedly terrific feedback on what a great home we had, we were unable to get the house sold. When I came to you to discuss our situation, we were worn down by the countless showings (we have a two and four year old) and the disruption to our lives. With your guidance on selling process and how to position the house for sale (including the terrific staging report you had prepared for us), we had a bid in the first week of your listing agreement and we closed the sale exactly 30 days after your representation began. I fully believe that your analytic approach to real estate is substantially different from all of the other agents I interviewed to sell our house. I am 100% confident this was the major factor for why we had such a successful outcome in what was an otherwise very difficult market. Please know that both Stacy and I will forever be grateful for your work in helping us move on with our lives and enjoy our wonderful new home.

Please feel free to share this note on with potential clients and don’t hesitate to offer me up as a reference should the need arise.

Hope the summer is going well and please do stay in touch.

Best regards,

Lenny Mazlish

17 Chestnut Hill

West Hartford, CT 06107

Actually, here's what we know: A real-estate writer for the New York Post reported that Justin Timberlake bought a ridiculously massive estate in Greenwich for $18.7 million. Then some dude connected to the property came out and said that was false.

Of course, celebrities hide behind shell corporations all the time. So if some sort of LLC ends up buying the house, it could just be Timberlake playing hide-and-seek with the press—or it could just be that a nobody rich person with an LLC.

But why would an ice-hot pop star wanna live there, anyway? Well, let's start with the A-list neighbors...

...who include, or have included, Katherine Heigl (New Canaan), Mel Gibson (Greenwich), John Mayer (Fairfield), 50 Cent (Farmington), Justin Long (Fairfield), and Meryl Streep (Greenwich).

Also, fact: Stars prefer $5 million houses to $1 million houses, and $10 million houses to $5 million houses.

Rob Giuffria, of Prudential Premier Homes in Farmington, says there are a lot of those fancy houses in his parts. "Greenwich has over 200 homes available for over $5 million right now," Giuffria tells me. "There is no better place on the East Coast to live than Greenwich. The only one that even comes close is the Hamptons. But with Greenwich, you can be in New York by car in about 45 minutes."

If you still don't see the appeal, well, then don't read what I have to say about Jersey. Stars also really like New Jersey.

Britney Spears owns a house in Alpine, along with Diddy, Jay-Z and Chris Rock. And reports swirled last month that the Jonas Brothers were sniffing around there too, in the neighborhood of about $10 million. (The brothers grew up in Jersey and call it home.) Why Jersey? Largely for the same reasons they like Connecticut: proximity and all this.

As for the stars who live in Los Angeles, well, of course they do. It's all about proximity—to me.

Twitter + Twitter = @answerbitch

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/ask_the_answer_bitch/b139299_did_justin_timberlake_move_boring.html

Hartford Courant | July 5, 2009

Dr. Shabnam Lainwala knew little about Connecticut when she and her husband, Vijay Murthy, began hunting for homes in June 2008. The neonatologist and her IT-executive spouse were relocating from the Boston area and wanted a community with a cosmopolitan feel, good schools and close proximity to Connecticut Children's Medical Center, where Lainwala, 43, would work.

West Hartford seemed a good fit, but the available homes then had small yards, needed too much work or exceeded the couple's $800,000 price cap.

Eventually, to their surprise, Lainwala and Murthy, 47, found the right house and neighborhood in Devonwood, a wooded subdivision in Farmington known for its million-dollar homes.

"Vijay saw it first and said, 'OK, you've got to see this house,'" Lainwala said of the 3,303-square-foot colonial.

Built in 1986, the home had the convenient location the couple wanted. It also featured an open floor plan they liked, updated fixtures, hardwood flooring and a redesigned kitchen. But with the $750,000 list price at the upper end of their budget, Lainwala and Murthy decided to keep looking.

Months later, when they looked at the house again and found the price had been reduced, they pounced. Their offer of $707,500 was accepted, plus a $1,500 credit.

"It was a phenomenal deal," said Rob Giuffria, a broker with Prudential Premier Homes and director of the firm's Farmington-based relocation service. "The median price in Devonwood is $950,000, and the range is $850,000 to $1 million. …This was exceptional."

The house is well suited for entertaining and can comfortably accommodate their parents, who visit annually from India, Lainwala said. Murthy's 10-year-old son also has plenty of room to grow, and subdivision regulations limit the number of trees owners can cut down.

"We like that," said Lainwala. "That was really a plus for us. It preserves the natural appearance."

There is traffic on Route 4, but coming from Boston, they are used to that, she said. Grocery stores are close, West Hartford isn't far and the commute to Hartford is 35 minutes in the morning and about 15 minutes on the return trip at night.

The house could easily fetch $800,000 or more once the market improves, Giuffria said. But Lainwala said she and her husband have no plans to sell any time soon. "We wanted to kind of settle," she said. "We hope to stay here for a long time."

— Loretta Waldman, Special to The Courant

FARMINGTON FACTS:

• Population (2008): 25,227

• Median single-family home sales price (Jan.-May 2009): $281,000

• Median condo sales price (Jan.-May 2009): $210,000

• Number of single-family home sales (2007): 235

Less than $100,000: 0

$100,000 - $199,999: 14

$200,000 - $299,999: 60

$300,000 - $399,999: 61

$400,000 or more: 100

• Number of new housing permits in:

2008: 28

2007: 48

2006: 103

2005: 104

2004: 126

• Housing stock (2007): 10,568 units; 74 percent single-family

• Owner-occupied dwellings: 73 percent

• Housing stock age, pre-1950: 15 percent

SOURCES: Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development; Connecticut Economic Resource Center; The Warren Group