Work It Out!

by Darrin DeRoches March 17 - 23, 2011

Let’s finish off from last week’s article where I had to run to contend with an offer on the townhouse that we had just put on the market.  We not only received an offer, we just removed the conditions and firmed up the sale. So to recap this sale, we had a property that was overpriced by $5,000 and was on the market for 100 plus days and did not sell.  We waited out the slow market, put the property back up – now -when there was no competition, priced it right and sold it for 98% of asking in under a week! Bing, Bam, Boom – Done!     I now have another client who is looking for another townhouse in the same complex but there are no homes for sale. The weather is changing this week and everyone is coming out of their caves looking to enter the market. So we have to now put out some feelers to see if anyone else is looking for a fast sale in the area. The moral of this story is if the price it right, be aware of the market and you will realize top dollar. The funny thing is we had already agreed to drop the price by five grand if we did not get any action, so they received 98% of asking which is way over their expectations.  We held tight during negotiations and this unit is now the highest selling comparable.  Not bad for a property that sat for almost four months.     Another interesting conversation about real estate occurred this week.  A lady called us about a private mortgage or a vendor take back and they wanted to know the value of the property and how to arrange a mortgage or set up a vendor take back.  After a few minutes of discussion I realized they were in for more than a standard sale or re-finance. The mother who owned the home has Alzheimer’s and was just placed in a home.  At first I thought they had to sell to pay for the care of the mother but after talking for some time it was apparent it was more about the money than care.  The daughter who was calling has ‘power of attorney’ over her mother’s affairs and was living in the home in question. The two other siblings wanted to ‘cash out’ on their mothers home.      The issues here were for a family councilor not at real estate and mortgage broker.  After discussing all the options it boiled down to this. I told her to sit down with her two siblings and work out a plan.  Everyone is trying to pick at the bones and the mother is still living in assisted care.  She thought they all would get lawyers, find private money and divide the proceeds. She has power of attorney so in essence she can just live in the home and use the monies to care for her mother and the property. Things get really ugly when money is involved with family. So instead of paying lawyers and private lenders, thousands and thousands of your mother’s money, sit down and work it out! V                                  Darrin DeRoches is a local real estate and mortgage broker. He can be reached to answer questions, comments or stories about real estate experiences through this weekly column at mail@uniquerealty.ca.