Prioritizing People: Flor's Story
It’s not often you decide it’s worth it to pay over market value, AND you save loads of money at the same time. For Flor, that was exactly what happened—and her story shows why it’s important to have an agent who is highly familiar with the local market to make the most strategic decisions possible.
We met Flor through the Internet—Zach is fluent in Spanish, has market expertise, and delights in making expert real estate knowledge available to the Spanish speaking demographic or our City.
Flor was an accountant for a firm in Utah, with family close by. Visiting family is important to her, and since she is a savvy investor, she wanted to find a rental property so that when she flew out, she could write off the trip as a work expense by checking up on her real estate investments while she was in town.
It did not take long to find the right property for her. Just one problem: the property was listed more than $20,000 above its fair market value, and there were multiple offers on the property already, many of which were close to list price.
As someone who believes in giving accurate information so that his clients can make the best decision, Zach was honest: the property was listed at $150,000, but was only worth $130,000 at best. While Flor easily could have afforded the first price, Zach just couldn’t recommend paying more than market value to his client.
The scary part though? There was no guarantee that the other buyers had agents willing to tell them what the property was actually worth, and it’s possible someone else would end up buying it by overpaying.
In the end, Flor and Zach landed on a third strategy: make a cash offer what Flor was actually willing to pay for this piece of property (slightly above true market value), and present a compelling case to the listing agent that this home would struggle to appraise for their price: taking any other offer would mean failure for their seller and going back to market at a price closer to our offer.
Eventually, after seeing Zach’s comps, the listing agent conceded: she was well aware the property was overpriced, but the family couldn’t bear to part with it for less. It was their father’s home before he passed, and they did not want to dishonor his memory.
Through careful collaboration, we were able to compassionately present the real market data to the selling parties, make an offer just above fair market value (but far below list price), and get the deal closed despite other, higher offers on the table.
Had we not gone through this process, or had she had another agent, it’s likely that Flor, being from out of town, would have dramatically overpaid for the property, and suddenly found herself the possessor of $20,000 worth of negative equity.
Thanks to some savvy pricing work and tight collaboration with the listing party, we were able to seal the deal for far less than asking price and beat out competitors offering far more, all while getting Flor the investment she needed to come visit her family on a regular basis, at a price she was happy to pay.
We’re incredibly proud of the work we did for Flor, and it’s the work we’d happily do for anyone at The King Group.
Are you curious what your best next move in real estate should be?
We're happy to listen to your situation, and share our honest opinion. We focus on what is best for your family and real data to inform what is possible.
Call or text Zach at: (417) 540-2558.
