Briefly in contract last month when asking $4,800,000, this afternoon the list price for Firehouse 44 (3816 22nd Street) was reduced to $4,250,000.
Once again, the renovated firehouse was first listed for $6,375,000 in May of 2008. And in the words of a plugged-in reader, a “seller will typically lower the asking price to the previously accepted in-escrow price.”
∙ Listing: 3816 22nd Street (4/4.5) 6,140 sqft – $4,250,000 [firehouse44.com]
I believe this project is a poster child of the bubble. It was a cool building before, and had no real need of all the bells a whistles that tried to elevate it to such a lofty extreme over the $1.5 million dollar houses nearby.
OK, so I feel a certain amount of schadenfreude. Apologies for that.
4 steps to the poor house:
1. Get under-asking offer.
2. Appraisal comes in for less. Won’t qualify. Don’t agree to sell for appraisal price. You aren’t going to give it away!
3. Drop price to offer price above.
4. Repeat.
The strategy of lowering the price to the previous “in contract price” is also a last ditch effort to flush the previous buyers back into contract for fear that they will risk losing the “sweet deal”. But it is a fools strategy if it doesn’t work and exposes real weakness.
The listing agent here is actually extremely lucky to have had a potential buyer show the seller the state of the market. I’ve often wondered why listing agents don’t have shill bidders low-bid on properties to get the seller to lower the price. Hey, if you’re going to play the DOM game, why not shill your client too? Oh, I guess that would be unethical.
Anyone know the brand/manufacturer of the door hanger pictured above?
The listing agent here is actually extremely lucky to have had a potential buyer show the seller the state of the market.
It’s not “the market” if the potential buyer couldn’t proceed with his plan. Anyone can make any kind of offer but if there’s no backing there’s no deal. No doubt a lower appraisal would have a negative impact on said “market”.
What’s with financing such a purchase? I thought this segment was all cash Chinese/European money?
Now that the price has fallen to reflect what this is, it just needs to fall to reflect where this is.
Finally got in to see this place during an open house over the weekend. After salivating over pictures of it for years, I was surprised by the general low-quality fit and finish.