Taking control of the sale — how research and data led to a better home selling experience
Kristin’s meticulous research and data-driven approach to her home sale helped make a normally stressful experience smooth and led to her getting the outcome she wanted.
Kristin bought her first condo at age 25. She was nervous. It was 2011 — the market was down, and Kristin wasn’t certain if it would continue to collapse or if it had reached the bottom. If she did make a purchase on a home, it would be completely on her own. But she had a five year plan and owning a home was part of it. She had worked hard to pay off her school loans shortly after graduation, and now was ready to buy her first home in Austin where she had been living and working for the past few years.
She started the buying process learning everything she could about the area, the real estate market, home prices, and stored the information in meticulous spreadsheets. She found a building that met all of her criteria and was set on buying a condo there. With all her research and with the help of her agent, she made two offers on two different one-bedroom condos. With the real estate laws in Texas at the time, she’d be obligated to pay $100 to get out of contract on one if both sellers happened to accept. In 2011 it was a negotiating market, so she didn’t think that both sellers would accept the first offer. Despite her extensive research, she was still apprehensive. “I’m scared, I’m nervous — am I making the right decision? I have all the data, but I’m still scared.”
“I’m scared, I’m nervous — am I making the right decision? I have all the data, but I’m still scared.”
She received a counter-offer for a higher price on one condo and the other offer fell through due to the seller’s negligence. She thought about what to do with the higher counter-offer she had received. She didn’t want to lose out on the home, but she reviewed her research and felt that she had made a fair offer. It was also a foreclosure, so she knew the bank was motivated to get the home off their books. So she came back with her original offer and was ready to walk away if they didn’t accept. The sellers accepted the offer and 30 days later Kristin successfully purchased her first condo. “I got exactly what I wanted for pretty much the price that I wanted.” While she felt lucky, she knew that understanding both the market conditions and the seller’s motivation helped her negotiate for her own interests.
Two years later, her job wanted her to relocate. She wasn’t ready to sell yet so she decided to rent out her Austin condo while she was living in California. She had tenants for a while, and a good experience with renting and managing the property on her own.
In 2015, she knew the Austin market was hot and home prices were on the rise. As before, she began the selling process by doing research — a lot of it.
Despite not living in the condo, she was still nervous about letting it go. She asked herself “am I ready to let go of Austin? Am I ready to let go of my home?” But she knew this was a good time to sell and she realized she was ready to close this chapter and open new doors in her life. It helped that this was another part of her five year plan. “Sometimes things just work out funny,” she said, smiling. She told her current tenant that she was planning on selling the home and set a timeline.
“Am I ready to let go of Austin? Am I ready to let go of my home?”
Kristin knew she wanted to get the place cleaned, staged, and take care of minor maintenance issues before selling. She made a spreadsheet of the different options for service professionals in her area and compared their prices and offerings. From there, she started making decisions on whom to choose for various services.
She then thought about how she wanted to receive offers. Did she want to set a date to review offers and encourage price competition, or should she review offers as they came in? Living in Northern California and seeing the hot housing market there had exposed her to the strategy of setting an offer due date, but this was not common in Texas. Kristin only had a small window of time when she would be in Austin to handle the sale and wanted the process done quickly. She figured she would get a great return on the condo, so decided to review offers on a rolling basis to move things along.
Her next step was to price her home. She looked at the recent sale price of condos both in her building and in other buildings in the area. Kristin researched recent condo sale prices online and even pulled local sale information from the county recorder’s office. She had taken great care of her condo over the past five years and considered the home’s resale value every time she chose fixtures and amenities to add or upgrade. Plus, her floor plan was highly desirable—it had a walk-in closet and a more functional layout. From her research, she calculated a reasonable price range based on the price per square foot factoring in the various things that made her condo attractive.
Kristin wanted someone to help with all the documents and didn’t want to handle the sale on her own so she decided to seek the assistance of a real estate agent. Not only did she not have the time to sell the condo on her own, she was also worried that without an agent, other real estate agents would retaliate and not bring their buyers to her condo if there was no commission on the sale. She contacted the agent who helped her purchase the condo originally and asked for details on what he would do to help with the sale. He focused on his relationships in the area, but she knew that her condo was in one of the hottest buildings in Austin and it was going to sell itself. She wanted to find a lower-cost option because she knew she had already done a lot of the heavy lifting and only needed the agent for the paperwork. She contacted Redfin to get an agent that charged a lower commission and found a great agent with a winning team.
She told the agent “this will likely be the easiest sale you’ve ever had.” Kristin had already set up cleaning services and someone to stage the condo, and knew when she wanted the home to go live on the market. She had even established a price range she was looking to sell for. When asking her agent about the home pricing strategy, Kristin was surprised she didn’t offer more help, but thought it may be because her agent didn’t want to question Kristin’s meticulous research. She was frustrated that her agent wasn’t offering any guidance, but was confident her numbers were fair. Her agent had her sign the seller disclosure packets and created a marketing book for the condo. She loved the condo’s staging and even asked Kristin for the contact information on the company that staged it.
The sale was quick. Kristin’s agent put the home on Austin’s Multiple Listing Service (MLS) on a Friday and by Tuesday evening Kristin had accepted an offer. Her agent didn’t even have to do any open houses. The offer she received was from another condo owner in the building and Kristin felt confident that it would close knowing that they were familiar with how things worked in their complex. They were also putting 20% down, which seemed less risky. Kristin thought they had a higher probability to get a good mortgage for the remaining financing and would be able to comply with Kristin’s timeline to sell. Other real estate agents continued to call Kristin asking to view the house until it was set to “Pending” on the MLS, but she said they were already negotiating an offer and the potential buyers could make a backup offer if they wanted.
Her buyer’s first offer was lower than her asking price, but Kristin came back with a slightly higher counter-offer that they accepted. The buyer settled on a closing date, went through his home inspections, and didn’t ask for any concessions after the inspections. The sale closed without a hitch.
“You have to understand the market, the climate, and what your needs are when selling your house. I was willing to bridge those three.”
Kristin was happy with how the sale turned out. She says being an informed buyer and seller helped her have a great experience. Without all the research she did, she thinks the process would have been significantly more difficult and she would have had to rely on a real estate agent much more for guidance and recommendations. “For me, a house is a lot of money, and I need to have confidence that the decisions I am making are correct, so I became very invested in the decision making process.”
If Kristin had to do this sale over, she would do it the same way. For her and her timeline, a quick and easy sale was preferred. With the same market conditions and more flexibility with time, she may have encouraged more offers to drive up the price. However, she knows that her decisions for her Austin home sale were well thought-through and attuned to her specific needs. She says about home selling “you have to understand the market, the climate, and what your needs are when selling your house. I was willing to bridge those three.” Overall, her knowledge of the process, data, and her options helped her have the home sale that she wanted.
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