Category Archives: Santa Clara

Just Sold in Santa Clara for $1,075,000…

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For this townhome I sold in Santa Clara for $1,075,000, I was the agent for the buyers who were referred to me by another couple that also bought a home with me. Although the market has softened, inventory is quite low, so even though there is less to no competition and prices are down, there aren’t a lot of homes to choose from in this market.

It didn’t take them too long to find the right match, but there were a couple of places they liked, even places that got multiple offers due to the shortage of inventory, that came on the market at aggressive pricing. And, then there was a home that was overpriced for this market, but the seller just didn’t recognize that the market has changed, and was not being reasonable. That home is still on the market today, 116 days later. I wonder if they regret not taking our offer. Although, personally, I like this home better. 🙂

And, then this townhome came on the market in the same community as the overpriced townhome. We were the only offer, and were able to negotiate the price UNDER the list price. The transaction itself was smooth and seamless.

The key to this market is just finding the right balance between price and the interest rate to come up with a reasonable mortgage payment. It’s always a good time to buy, as opposed to throwing money away on renting, at the right price coupled with the interest rate.

In fact, when the market softens and there is no competition, the end game is that buyers get a better deal overall, as opposed to buying high with fierce competition. Buyers lock in the lower price, which also locks in a lower property tax, and can concentrate on paying down/off the mortgage and/or refinance when rates go down. And, if you are a cash buyer, it’s a great time to buy and get a good deal.

Just Sold in Santa Clara for $1,075,000

Just Sold in Santa Clara for $1,075,000

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Just Sold in Santa Clara for $3,650,000!

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For this home I just sold in Santa Clara for $3,650,000, I was the agent for the buyers, who were referred to me by their sister, who is a client that I have worked with 3 times in the past!

These buyers had been looking for about 6 months for ‘the one’. There were a few homes they almost made an offer, but this home ended up being the very first offer they made for a home.

The competition was FIERCE! There were a number of offers, but the top 3 offers, including our offer, were really determined to get this home and were battling it out.

I do have to say, the seller for this home was pushing the limit and the patience of the top 3 buyers. The seller actually wanted to keep trying for more money, even after all the offers were in, and the seller did NOT reach the price they hoped to reach.

The seller sent a counter to the top 3 offers, of which all 3 were not that far off from the price the seller wanted, I think it was more the principle of the matter of asking for a higher price than any of the offers even came in at.

And, frankly, the buyers almost bailed due to the seller’s approach to being so greedy and wanting more than any of the buyers even offered.

But, at the end of the day, they did love the home and the location, knew what it took to get this home, and for the delta between the price the seller wanted and their highest price offered, it wasn’t a huge difference and they decided to go for it and we got it!

The transaction itself was very smooth and seamless. The buyers are moving from Washington state, so mostly they were out of state during the transaction, except for the final walkthrough and closing to pick up the keys.

Just Sold in Santa Clara for $3,650,000!

Just Sold in Santa Clara for $3,650,000!

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Just Sold in Santa Clara for $930,000…

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For this townhome I sold in Santa Clara for $930,000, I was the agent for the seller, who actually bought this townhome with me as well. Fun story, I sold his wife a condo some years back, she referred me to this client, they ended up getting married, and now they were selling this townhome to buy a SFR together.

When the market is changing and a bit uncertain, there are certain things that come up and become more important to buyers, than when the market is hot and buyers are competing and seem to buy anything they can get their hands on. In this case, we thought this home would sell for at least $1m. It’s a great home, great location, all signs point to a hot home that will sell fast with competition. In fact, it was registering as a hot home on the consumer sites.

But, what became a bigger issue than ever possibly anticipated here were the HOA dues. The HOA dues for this community are $546/month and it was literally a deal breaker for a number of buyers. I realize it’s on the higher side, but I’ve sold numerous communities with high dues before with no issue whatsoever, but in this market, paying that price point plus those HOA dues just kind of tipped people over the edge and it was a bit shocking.

The bummer for the seller was that there is actually going to be a meeting to lower the dues and take out a ‘perk’ that no one seems to want anyway. But, of course, we can’t guarantee that will happen and the dues will decrease. And, the sellers found a home they really wanted to buy, so they wanted to move forward and not wait around for that meeting to see if the dues would indeed go down, so it was a Catch 22. There just seemed to be this balance with buyers where they tapped out at this price range in order to compensate for the high dues, and that sale price is where it seemed to tap out.

Since the sellers found a home they loved and really wanted to buy, they didn’t want to wait for the HOA dues to go down, or the market to go up, and decided to just move forward so they could buy the home they really loved.

The transaction itself went fairly smooth, there was some frustration, the buyers were somewhat difficult to deal with, but we muddled through it.

At the end of the day, it is often difficult to buy and sell at the same time. If a client has to sell a home in order to buy a home, this type of thing can easily come up, where the clients are in a stressful situation on either the buying side or the selling side…or both sides frankly. I realize in many cases it feels like the only way to make the transition, but anytime one has to sell in order to buy, there can be a lot of pressure and the negotiations can be tough and sometimes end up not in their favor.

Sold in Santa Clara for $930,000

Sold in Santa Clara for $930,000

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Just Sold in Santa Clara for $2,100,000…

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For this home I just sold in Santa Clara for $2,100,000, I was the agent for the sellers who are moving out of the Bay Area. It was a long process from start to finish, in that they needed their kids to finish the school year, and do some things for prepping the home, so it took months to prep and also have the home ready at a time in which they could work with the timing of the school year ending.

Over that time, the market was shifting, and we just paid close attention to try to best capitalize on the right timing for selling and also realistic timing for staying until the end of the school year.

It was a bit of a rocky ride monitoring the market, because we were noticing the market changing and we wanted to make sure we made this all work. The sellers did a lot over the course of time to prep the home, so it really did look amazing when it was ready for sale. Some key things they did to really dial it in for curb appeal made a huge difference. They had already spend a lot of money on upgrades over the years when they were just living there and not in the market to sell. So, the upgrades truly were over the top and super high end.

One thing that I personally noticed prior to listing the home was that the county records did not match the actual house in that the bedroom count was off. The county records were showing 4 bedrooms, when the home is actually 5 bedrooms. So, that was something I asked the seller get corrected right away so that there were no questions about it. And, it truly is per the county, a 5 bedroom home, so the county just simply made some kind of error and did update their system to get that corrected. That can take time, so anytime county records are incorrect, it’s a really good idea to get that corrected, so that when one does go to sell, they aren’t dealing with that at the 11th hour. It takes time for the online sites and records to catch up to the county records, sometimes many months. So, it’s good to get that taken care of well in advance.

When we listed the home, due to the superb home condition and location, the expectations were high for this particular home, so when the open houses were not as busy as expected, it really was a sure sign that the market was slowing down. Thankfully, we did get a full priced offer after the first open house weekend, and a buyer that would work with us for the timing of the school, and we also had some additional interest. It just didn’t go as it would have last year at the same time, where we would have likely had 10+ offers. But, luckily, the right buyer came along and it was all good.

I know not to say “I have seen it all in my 24 years as a real estate agent”, because every time I feel I have been through basically everything, and really have seen it all, something new happens. And, in this case, there were 2 things that popped up that were quite stressful frankly. Thank God, both of these things came up BEFORE we accepted the offer and went into contract, so that we could alert the buyers of the situation BEFORE everything was said and done, so really, that was a true blessing. I felt very thankful for finding out in advance.

I received a call from the City of Santa Clara telling me there had been a complaint filed in regard to the shed, actually, it appeared the complaint was something about a water pipe on the shed, or something of that nature. Apparently, someone saw a water pipe on the shed during my open house weekend, and called the city about it. But, to this day, I don’t know if the complaint was truly about that water pipe, or the people were trying to get the City out to see that shed too close to the fence without the proper set back. Mind you, this is a VERY nice shed built on a foundation! It wasn’t old or raggety, it was really nice and no way did the seller or buyer want it to go away. But, the City called it and made the sellers remove the shed. The shed had been there for years and the seller told me that when they bought the home over 10 years ago, the shed was there, and that’s how they bought the house. They didn’t build the shed. So, that was SUPER stressful for the seller to get the shed removed and we also had to let the buyer know, that they were buying this home without the shed, sorry! Ugh!

And, since the City had been contacted with the complaint in regard to the shed, apparently, the City Inspector was reviewing the file for the home itself for some reason and noticed that there were never final permits filed on some of the remodel work that was done to the house. This work had been completed a couple of years ago, and it was done by a licensed contractor who assured them all was in order, everything was signed off, and they had permits. The sellers had all the paperwork and there were initials and things looked in order, but apparently, the actual final sign off was not complete, which means the contractor did not complete his job and the sellers had no idea. So, not only did the sellers have to remove the shed on a whim, but now they had to get a final permit on all the remodel work they did a couple years ago, the contractor was nowhere to be found, and they have to scramble to make this happen, while also dealing with the shed situation. So, it was a stressful time for the seller, to say the least.

I will say, and I did explain this to the sellers, that really, we were VERY blessed to find this out in advance, and not during the transaction when there would not be enough time to correct the issues and/or having to give this new info to the buyers during our transaction. And, to top it off, it was best that this happened while they were still the owners, and not have the buyers close on the transaction, and then find this info out months later. That would have been all bad. So, as frustrating as it was, I really felt we were lucky to get this all resolved and be able to pass over to the buyers, a home that had everything in order and no surprises down the road.

I think that once the sellers left the area, they were relieved to put this all behind them. It was a LOT to make such a big move, selling this home, buying out of the area, these surprises to pop up out of nowhere. It was just a LOT! But, now it’s all over and they can move on to the next chapter of life!

I guess the moral of this story, is when you think you are getting work done with permits, make 100% sure that everything if signed off and finaled by the city inspector. If you don’t know where to look, then go to the city and have them show you that it’s complete, don’t rely on the contractor. And, when you have a shed or any kind of structure really close to a fence, know that it very likely does not have the proper set back, and you just never know when someone may tell on you.

Just Sold in Santa Clara for $2,100,000!

Just Sold in Santa Clara for $2,100,000!

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