A Southern California real estate agent has a different approach to pricing homes to sell. Brock Harris, founder of Brock Real Estate in the Silver Lake region of Los Angeles, has listed a three-bedroom, one-bathroom craftsman bungalow home in the Echo Park area for $1.
“Right now, the real estate market is getting more crowded with agents. It’s slowing down,” Harris said. “Our company seeks creative ways of getting our properties noticed and sold.” He said the $1 list price will hopefully attract more attention – and purchase offers – from prospective home buyers.
“The listing price is given too much weight in the buying process. The buyers don’t know if it’s the minimum the sellers will take, or if (it) represents the only price that will get accepted. Many people think it’s the sellers that set prices. It’s not, it’s the buyers who set prices. Pricing homes in this manner accepts that fact and puts the buyers in charge and lets them set the market price,” he said.
And Harris offers sellers a guarantee: If he doesn’t sell the home at a price acceptable to them within 120 days, he’ll buy the home for cash.
He has used some other unconventional marketing techniques as well. He has listed the $1 home on the Los Angeles edition of Craigslist.org, a Web site that serves as a community message board and classified listings service.
In his Craigslist post, Harris notes, “THE PRICE IS NOT A TYPO. YOU ARE WITNESSING A REVOLUTIONARY NEW WAY TO MARKET PROPERTY IN CALIFORNIA.”
The $1, 1,092-square-foot home has a den, hardwood floors, a fireplace and built-ins in the living room, a “cove-window seating area to die for,” off-street parking in back, is within walking distance of a lake, and is near a freeway.
A three-bedroom, two-bathroom home that Harris is marketing in the Echo Park area carries a $473,000 price tag, by comparison.
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