They Loved Their Home. Then They Loved This One More.
Next week, my clients will close on the sale of their current home and move into their dream home in Boise. It’s a fun story how this came to be, and I wanted to share it.
The Highlands home my clients are leaving is one I helped them buy less than 2 years ago. They have spent that time customizing it to their own taste: remodeling the kitchen, putting in new hardwood floors, and painting the entire interior. They even spent about a year developing plans for an extensive overhaul of the sloped backyard, and were planning to implement those plans come spring. And then...
A stunning home in their neighborhood came up for sale - one that had everything they wanted. So they called me.
To say I was surprised to hear that they wanted to move is an understatement. These clients had done so much to make their home just so, and had loved many things about it. But WOW - the home they wanted to buy was a special one. It had a large, perfectly level backyard - a rare characteristic in the Highlands neighborhood. It had the same grown-up treehouse feel that they loved in their current home, but also had views, a butler’s pantry, hidden media room and wine cellar, and a full primary wing on the main level.
My clients and I knew, because of the quality of the home, that this was likely to be a competitive offer situation. After reviewing the options available to anyone buying and selling a home simultaneously, I helped them structure their offer in a way that ultimately led to them winning out over at least four other offers, and they closed on that home just two weeks later, though they wouldn’t move in for two more months.
My work for them wasn’t over, and I immediately turned my attention to their listing. It was time to implement the same marketing plan I use on every listing:
I hired a professional real estate photographer to capture the exact shots that I knew would show the features of their home that they were so proud of
I created printed collateral highlighting the best photos, giving buyers just enough to entice them to see the home in person
I used a hero image on a Just Listed mailer that went out to 550 homes in the area, thinking the chances were fairly high that a neighbor would either want to move from their own home into this one or would know someone they’d like to have in the neighborhood
Just 4 days after going on the market, we received a full-priced offer and my clients accepted!
This story is similar to many that I see in the Boise real estate market. Well-priced and well-prepared homes move quickly, and we’re still seeing multiple offers in many situations. If you already own a home and would like to buy a new one, there are options available to you beyond making your offer contingent on the sale of your existing home, and you can still come out on top in a competitive offer scenario.
Beyond the basic facts of the transaction, I wanted to share this story to demonstrate the relationship a good real estate agent has with his or her clients. My clients called me to help with this because they knew it would take someone that could tell their story in order to win their dream home. Through 4 transactions with 3 different homes, I’m not just a service provider to them - I have become a small piece of some of the biggest milestones in their lives.