Originally posted by @Russell Brazil:
@Marcela Correa What kind of feedback on the comps is your agent giving you? Is the address you gave for the future project or the one that is sitting on the market?
Ive been seeing more and more flips in DC come to the market way overpriced. And it is impossible to tell who is at fault in these situations. Is the flipper just unrealistic in what they think the house will sell for, or is the agent giving them bad information, or is the agent merely telling them what they want to hear to get the listing.
I do like that youve indicated your project would be a wardman style rowhouse. All too often I see novices in the DC market not understand the difference between a wardman style/petworth style, victorian, federal style rowhouses. They ended up trying to flip a federal style and think they can comp it against a victorian style.
There is a flip in Petworth now that I am watching, as it is around the corner from a listing I will have coming on the market in the Spring. It has a number of problems with it. It is overpriced of course compared to the comps. Your house should be priced where the comps are selling, and not over them. It is on an incredibly narrow street. That is going to lessen the pool of buyers. It has no master bathroom, and at this price point people expect that. There was only hardwoods on the main level and not upstairs. The carpet color they chose for the upstairs and basement is not very appealing, as it has a distinct blue tint. They painted the whole house the same color. Where the washer and dryer were in the basement, they did not put a door on the closet, so they are then just essentially sitting there in the middle of the family room. And there was a number of other things.
There was some great things about this property though as the kitchen and bathrooms, along with the hardwood floors on the main level were stunning. But I think the flippers were blinded by what was right with the property and couldnt see what was wrong.
I bring this all up to make the point that sometimes we can not see what is wrong with our own property. This is things your agent should be telling you, if they even know these things. It is also important why you need a good working long term relationship with an agent, so that they can be honest with you about why the property isnt selling.
Thanks for the response, @Russell (my @ feature is definitely not working). You got me thinking from the first line. While I do have an agent that I've used and who knows the city well, I've been doing most comping myself. I have run things by him or other realtors that I've worked with or, in this case, reached out to BP for feedback.
My reason for doing the analysis myself is that we're relatively new investors (we're GCs that do whole house gut and rehabs for retail clients) and I know the practice does me well plus I get my information in real time without having to wait for someone else to respond to me. What I realize I miss is someone else's perspective and experience. I've relied on BP and literature to build a simple model to analyze nearby sales of similar properties pre and post rehab. It's time consuming and I do it on way more houses than I would be comfortable asking someone else to do for me.
Another factor is that if I do the analysis myself, I can contact the listing agent directly and that helps me on the negotiation side.
Am I approaching this the wrong way? What should I be expecting from an investor-friendly realtor?
The address is for the new project, as that's the one I was seeking advice on.
Thanks again,
Marcela
