THE PRICE IS WRONG, BOB

WELCOME

Hello and welcome to this week’s newsletter! I have to tell y’all that this year started out rough, but I am finally starting to feel like myself again. There’s an expression that anything with salt water is healing, whether it’s sweat, tears, or the sea. While that is true and I felt a great refresh after going to the beach, I think getting busy again is the ultimate balm for what’s ailed me.

Anyway, it’s all good… except for whatever insanity is going on with comps right now, and that’s the subject of today’s newsletter.

STORY TIME WITH GLENNDA

What in the Actual Hell Is Happening Here?

Real talk? Pricing is insane right now. I’ve been doing this since the 1990s and I've never seen uncertainty or a lack of uniformity of pricing like at this moment. In the past, I may have seen places that have been 3, 4, or 5% off, maybe. But it's very rare that on every listing appointment that I go into with a buyer where the seller is at one price and I’m at a price that is catastrophically different.

I’ve just never seen anything like it in my life and it’s not anything I can put my finger on it. I’ve seen price disparity before, of course, but I’ve never, ever seen a market where I couldn't figure out the pattern behind that disparity.

Whether the market was going up or the market was stable or the market was going down, there's always a pattern. With anything in life, it's very rare that you can't find the pattern, yet lately I cannot find it and that goes for pricing in any area. Doesn’t matter what price range, either. I’m talking about houses on the same street in my neighborhood, all three of the houses built in the same era with the same finishes, all of them stucco. They’re basically all in the same family of homes, like cousins.

But the pricing?

They’re not even remotely related! It makes me think of the Three Stooges—Mo, Curley, and Larry, and they’re brothers but one has brown hair with bangs, one has red hair, and one is bald. I mean, it's the exact same thing, in theory, but so different in reality. One is 4000 square feet, one of them is 9000 square feet. The one that's 4000 square feet is $2.5M and the one that's 9000 square feet is $2.7M. How does that even compute?

There seems to be no formula for anything. I mean, Victoria goes on a listing appointment. She asks me, “How much do you think the house is worth?” I say, “I'd be willing to list it at $850K. But I’ve got tell you, I think it's probably more like $800K as it’s three bed/two bath on a busy street.” Victoria tells them $850K and another agent swoops in and says it should be $950K, and that place goes overnight for $925K. And this is in my TMZ—my three mile zone where I know all the houses.

What in the actual hell?

That’s why it’s no longer sufficient to look at the MLS and derive your information or your opinion of value based on an MLS printout. If you are not going into every home in your TMZ to see it for yourself, you are going to miss the boat.

Now I want y’all to sit down and grasp tightly. I have shown 31 houses in four days. All of those houses are somewhere between 6,000 to 12,000 square feet. (I always say I don't work out; I show houses in heels.) So this agent calls me and she says to me, “What you think about the pricing on this house? What do you think the price should be?” I asked where the house was and when she told me, I said, “I'm not going to give you a price opinion. I've got a buyer I want to show it to, so I’ll just go see it. But where do you think you're going to shake out?” She tells me she thinks it’s somewhere around $3M.  

I went and looked at this house, and there isn't any day of this house's life that it's worth $3 million. She’s not 3, 4, or 5% off, it’s more like 15%; I’m talking a good $450K over what it’s worth. As we were walking around that house, it was instantly clear to me why that house is priced the way it was. The husband’s clothes were in one closet on the basement, while the wife’s clothes were in another closet on the upstairs, telling me that somebody has a shopping problem. I mentioned this to my buyer and he says, “I didn't even notice that.”

I also suspected the husband was mad because he's so upside-down in this house. I confirmed this because the seller was there and he was his own worst enemy. I asked him, “Where are you going?” He told me, “Oh, we want to go to something smaller.” Sir. No, you do not. Nobody with three small children who is 38 years old is going from their $3 million house to something smaller voluntarily. My vibe was that there was a financial pinch, so there’d be no way he’d want to sell this place without getting every dollar he could, so we crossed that home off our list.

What’s funny is that I have a call on Wednesdays where I talk to agents all over the country. Right now, it does not matter where you are in the country, pricing is a complete total shit show. Always before, there was a metric, like, the lot size was worth a certain amount. The size of the house was worth a certain amount. The location was the driving factor in pricing. Okay, so the best school district, the best lot, the lot characteristics, the yard; the location was this common-sense, huge driver of value.

And now the huge driver of value is condition and the condition is subjective.

When location is the driver, there's only so many variables. Like, the school district, doesn't back up to a street, it has a flat yard. There's just a certain number of variables, whereas with condition, there's just 1000 different things from new paint, new flooring, new light fixtures. Is that good enough? No, they want the kitchen opened up. Do you have new cabinets with a soft-close? Do you have a soaking tub? Do you have a seamless shower? I showed one place over the weekend where the guy has a $60,000 screen in the media room. Who on God’s green earth pays $60,000 for a screen? Plus, this seller has $290,000 sunk into the backyard just the swimming pool because it has a $70,000 infinity edge. That’s of great value to some—and none whatsoever to others, hence all the disparity.

So when there’s no rhyme or reason at first glance for the pricing in your area, there’s only one thing thing to do—you set foot in every home and see them for your damn self. It’s the only way you’re going to make sense of this crazy market.

Whether you choose to tour these places in heels is up to you.

@glenndabaker

Whose house are you selling with your pricing strategy? #GlenndaBaker #RealEstate #AtlantaRealEstate #Pricing #Overpriced #GoogleGlennda #GlenndaTok

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GLENNDA’S GURU

Welcome, Phil M. Jones!

Oh, my stars and stripes, y’all, I am talking to an extra-special guest this week! My guru is the one and only Phil M. Jones, bestselling author of the “Exactly” series. When I say that he is the master of influence and persuasion, I do not make this claim lightly. Phil is sought out by business leaders all over the world due to what he has to teach about the quality of conversations you’re having with your clients. But instead of me trying to describe just how great he is, why not watch and find out?

Phil, thanks a mil(lion)!

GLENNDAISM

Today’s Words of Wisdom

GLENNDA BAKER & ASSOCIATES

Like Out of a Fairy Tale

Today, I have a the kind of cottage you read about in a storybook… except it’s not in a fairy tale. Instead, it’s located on the convenient Westside!

This is such a unique property with in-town convenience and just perfect for a young family or a single person. There’s vaulted ceilings, a porch I just want to live on, and a two-car garage in a property that looks like a gingerbread house and is anything but cookie-cutter!

P.S. If you’re in the market for a mansion, I’ve got those, too.