This Wasn't Going to Be a Normal Listing
Our clients had moved to British Columbia but still owned the Ranchlands townhouse that had been her first real estate purchase.
The property was now rented, and they were ready to sell so they could use the equity toward something new.
Straightforward enough.
Until I tried to see the property.
I arrived, rang the doorbell and waited.
Nothing.
The tenants were clearly home.
I rang again.
Still nothing.
Apparently, the doorbell had developed the remarkable ability to become completely inaudible whenever a REALTOR® was standing outside.
Eventually, I got in.
And that's when I knew we were going to need a very different strategy.
We Had Two Problems
First, the property wasn't going to show particularly well.
The tenants had a lot of belongings throughout the townhouse, and we weren't going to have the usual ability to stage, declutter and prepare the property the way we normally would.
The bigger concern was access.
If getting through the front door was difficult for me, I couldn't build a selling strategy that depended on buyers and their agents successfully arranging individual showings over the next several weeks.
We needed to assume that every future showing could become a problem.
So instead of fighting the situation, we designed the sale around it.
One Day. One Opportunity.
The sellers didn't want a prolonged listing.
We priced the townhouse strategically to attract significant interest and create the potential for multiple offers.
Then we concentrated the showing activity.
Rather than depending on repeated access to the property, we held an open house and scheduled the buyer activity around that single window.
Our objective was simple:
Get as many serious buyers through the property as possible while we knew we had access.
No weeks of hoping the door would be answered.
No constantly rescheduled appointments.
No selling strategy dependent on circumstances we couldn't control.
We had one good opportunity.
We intended to make it count.
It Worked
The pricing created interest.
The concentrated showing strategy created urgency.
Buyers saw the property.
Offers came in.
And the townhouse sold in one day.
Exactly the kind of result our sellers needed so they could move forward with their plans in British Columbia.
The Result
A difficult tenant-occupied property.
Limited control over presentation.
Unreliable access for showings.
A pricing strategy designed to generate competition.
One concentrated day of buyer activity.
Sold in one day.
You Don't Need a Perfect Listing. You Need the Right Strategy.
Not every property arrives beautifully staged, freshly painted and ready for photographs.
Sometimes there are tenants.
Sometimes access is difficult.
Sometimes the property doesn't show particularly well.
And sometimes circumstances simply aren't going to change.
That's when the strategy has to.
For this Ranchlands townhouse, trying to force a conventional listing process onto an unconventional situation would have created unnecessary risk.
Instead, we worked with the reality we had.
Price it correctly. Concentrate the demand. Control the showing window. Create competition. Get it sold.
Most agents would probably prefer an easier listing.
Easy wasn't what these sellers needed.
They needed a plan that worked.