Sunday, November 13, 2005

If I were to sell on ebay

Selling Lofts on ebayLast week I got an email that someone was selling their loft on ebay (thanks Dave). How freaky is that?

Lots of people have asked me about it, so here it goes.

Hopefully the deal works out for all involved.

I've always had the feeling in real estate that many of my buyer clients sort of feel that the significant involvement from a realtor starts when they begin looking and ends when they find the home they want to purchase. This could be extended to include the negotiations on price. Fair enough.

If that was all that was involved on my end, my life would be so much easier.

In the past year, I've had transactions where we were in negotiations to resolve matters up to and even AFTER everyone walks away from the closing table. The truth of the matter is that real estate transactions can be very complicated and generally, there are two absolutely opposite interests involved. Keeping those interests working together to consumate the sale is what the realtor must do.

I guess the bottom line is, assuming a genuine buyer is found on ebay that intends on closing the deal, there is still a fair amount that needs to take place to ensure that the deal doesn't die or worse yet, result in a lawsuit. If I listed my home on ebay without a reserve, I would make sure that someone was ready to outbid the highest bidder just in case the high bid was drastically below my lowest acceptable price. Not that its happening here, but hypothetically. Anyway, this transaction has really caught my attention, as well as so many others, that I plan to keep an eye on the tax records etc. to see if the loft is really sold or not. Inquiring minds want to know.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Closing price.. $300,100..

Chris Grus said...

I found it interesting, and very convenient for the seller, that the bidding had pretty much stopped at $250,100 and then at the last minute, someone on ebay with one day of experience on ebay and no transaction history (possibly a phantom bidder???) just decided to outbid the prior bidder by $49,900. Someone appeared to have set up their bid to outbid the high bidder by $100, and they ended up as the highest bidder. If I was in their position, I would pay a maximum of $250,000.

Anonymous said...

Can you confirm if the sale was actually completed for $300,100? I've seen it reported that the buyer never contacted the seller.