As we reported late last month:
Purchased for $1,412,000 three months ago, the Glen Park home at 1750 Noe Street has undergone a quick renovation, remodeling and re-positioning to “the outskirts of Noe Valley.”
According to the permits, the project did not include any structural changes other than the relocation of the bathroom on the ground floor, but it did include the construction of a new “sleeping room” on the lower level, a rewiring, and a remodeling of the home’s existing bathrooms and kitchen.
The yard was also newly hardscaped, landscaped and terraced.
Now listed with 2,300 square feet of living space, up from 1,913 square feet per its listing in May, the three-bedroom home is back on the market and asking $2,698,000.
Withdrawn from the MLS without a reported sale this past Thursday, the listing for 1750 Noe is now once again active but with a list price that’s been changed to $2,395,000, a reduction of $303,000 (11 percent).
Makes sense to me in the abstract. Why not price it high and see if anyone bites? Isn’t this a more rational strategy for a seller than to underprice and ‘try to create a frenzy’? Admittedly more work for a listing agent.
The house is decently well upgraded, but the layout is just too wonky for a premium asking price.
As I said when SS first posted on this one, it was overpriced for Glen Park and probably even Noe proper. Soccermom, I actually disagree on the strategy of pricing high and seeing who bites. Once you get into the game of chasing prices down, I think you will more than likely net less on the final sale. I recently got involved in a bidding situation on a house that got 16 offers after just 7 days on the market. It was clearly underpriced, but the “winning” offer was 60 percent over asking. By my estimation, this place went for 5-10% over reasonable comps for the area, and it closed in a month, so underpricing certainly paid off for the seller in this case. As a potential buyer, I found it annoying and a borderline unethical, but that is the market these days.
I could be wrong on this – there never seems to be anything more than anecdotal evidence for the ‘price low’ argument.
As a buyer I would feel better having negotiated a seller down than having to ‘crazy bid’ through the asking price.
@Lance: I agree that over-pricing makes no sense — it just makes the property look like damaged goods. There are enough buyers in the market that houses will be bid up to their fair value. I am not sure there is anything “unethical” about pricing something 60% below its market price, but it does seem like a waste of everyone’s time. You might as well just say you are holding an auction.
I believe there is a lot of economic research on the optimal type of auction. An auction that starts low and goes up often ends in a “winner’s curse”, which means the buyer has overpaid and the seller is the winner. Auction that start high and go down, also called Dutch auctions, are most efficient for moving large quantities of goods quickly, not the case here. (I think Google used a type of Dutch auction to price shares for their IPO.) When I sell, I’m definitely going to price low and pray for a bidding frenzy.
What happened to that house on the sliver lot over there by Kite Hill? And why doesn’t that modern remodel over there on the edge of SeaCliff (27th Avenue) I think, sell? What is the psychology there?
I think the 27th Avenue sold for $3,750,000.
Thank you. It seemed like it was on the market forever. Any news on the Kite Hill house on the sliver lot that was showcased here several months ago?
Why do realtors cheap out on their websites so badly? Flash-only?
UPDATE: The listing for 1750 Noe has just been withdrawn from the MLS without a reported sale.
Looks like they changed realtors: signs for Sotheby’s went up yesterday. Probably a good move, too: the previous marketing was awful (unusable web site, horrible marketing photos, no staging). Felt to me that the out-of-town agent thought it would sell itself without any effort on his part.