The Science Behind the Sale
Patience and Compromise Prove the Winning Formula

By Sandra Fleishman
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, March 31, 2007

Sure, there are plenty of houses sitting and sitting on the market in some neighborhoods. Despite that, there are still sellers getting those coveted contract offers.

Nationally, there's more than a six-month supply of existing homes for sale. In some parts of Northern Virginia, the inventory is more like 8 or 10 months.

So how are successful sellers doing it? The basics triumph in a buyer's market, real estate agents say. Price, location and condition are uppermost.

And sometimes it just takes time. Consider these examples:

* * *

Mike Winder and his girlfriend, Terri Skubel-Lunz, never dreamed that it would take six months to sell their two houses in Frederick.

They decided in September to list his rowhouse in the downtown historic district and her townhouse because they had become engaged and wanted to live together elsewhere. Optimistically, they bought a house in October.

"The thinking was that we'll just take a leap of faith, and we'll sell the houses pretty quick," Winder recalled. But as the days dragged by without offers, "with three mortgages, we felt very stressed."

He said, "We knew what we were doing and we knew what we were getting into, but we still thought we would sell very, very fast." Both houses were in good shape and in good locations.

He was optimistic in part because he and Skubel-Lunz had sold two other homes in the previous three years, and both had gone under contract within two weeks.

But this was a very different market. Skubel-Lunz's three-bedroom, 2 1/2 -bath brick townhouse was priced well when it was first listed, Winder said. At $320,000, the end unit, with its new deck and flooring, "was right in the middle of the pricing structure" for similar properties. And in December, Skubel-Lunz, an occupational therapist, dropped her price $10,000.

"But by January, she was really way overpriced" as other sellers also cut by thousands, he said.

"We weren't really getting any traffic. . . . My gut feeling was that no one was looking."

The couple offered a $5,000 cash incentive. When that didn't work, "we drastically lowered the price" and drew a buyer in February, Winder said. Because the contract hasn't settled yet, he said, he wouldn't reveal the final price.

Winder, who owns two ice cream and candy stores in Frederick, was reluctant to lower the $499,900 price on his own 2,500-square-foot rowhouse. The century-old brick end unit "was in excellent condition," having been remodeled by the previous owners. The historic exterior is charming; the landscaping is new. Inside, it has the high-end features buyers say they want, including granite countertops, upgraded appliances, and central heat and air conditioning.

Winder thought he had sold it in October, when he accepted a contract from a Washington couple. But that contract was contingent on the couple selling their house in 45 days. When the 45 days passed, he said, "we pulled the plug on that deal."

Winder said he believed that it was just a matter of time before the "right buyer" would come along, so he stuck with the price and with repeated open houses, which continued to draw lookers. Another couple seemed very interested; they even brought in an architect. Still, no offer.

Early this month, another couple "visited for the first time" and made an offer. Negotiations led to a contract, which is expected to settle in late May.

Having three mortgage payments has been painful, Winder said. To sell, "it just had to be the right person at the right time."

He thinks the key was that the buyers came in with an agent who knew the neighborhood. "He knows the house and the structure of the building. And he knew it was a good house."

Getting Real

Debbie Sittnick's Ashburn townhouse went under contract in 48 days.

The key, she said, was that she was realistic about the market and thus flexible about the price.

Although her agent thought the 19-year-old, three-bedroom property could sell for $365,000 because it has a walk-out basement and a water view, Sittnick said she knew that a neighbor's house lacking those features had recently sold for only $350,000.

So when no offers had come in after a month, Sittnick agreed to drop the price by $10,000, then another $5,000. She also agreed to pay $4,000 in closing costs, another incentive for cash-starved buyers.

"The neighbors sold their house in December in one week," said Sittnick, who works for Tax Analysts, a nonprofit publisher. "But I put my townhouse on the market the first week in January, and it sat for a few weeks with no serious offers. It felt like a long time to me, though it wasn't."

A contract came in at $350,000 in February, and settlement was March 7.

"It cost me money to sell the house," Sittnick said. She bought it at the height of the market, just 2 1/2 years ago.

But she never loved the place. And she had a compelling reason to sell -- she had found a new home in an "active adult" community that was a great deal. Builder Del Webb had dropped the price from $470,000 to $384,500 and offered to pay six months of the first mortgage.

Because Sittnick responded quickly to the sluggish market by adjusting her price, there was just one month where she had to pay two mortgages -- the second mortgage on the new house and the mortgage on the townhouse.

Her agent, Kathy Colville of Long & Foster in Sterling, said Sittnick also did her homework before listing. She replaced a wall that she had taken down to combine two of the three bedrooms into a larger space. And she agreed to have the house repainted. The house was empty, though, which is a turnoff for some shoppers who have trouble imagining a lived-in house.

Sittnick said she wasn't comfortable with the idea of buying before selling. "It was a gamble, and I'm not a gambling person. But Kathy took me by the hand and led me along. . . . And because Del Webb had agreed to pay the first mortgage for six months, I could afford to take the risk."

She said, "Now, I'm able to live in a brand-new house for the first time in my life."

'Chasing the Market Down'

It took real estate agent Vicki Salton 234 days to sell one Ashburn house, even though it "showed very nicely and was very well taken care of."

The slowdown? "It did not have a lot of upgrades. And that's what buyers in today's market are looking for," said Salton, of the Polaris Group at Century 21 Redwood Realty in Ashburn. The nine-year-old house was listed last summer "just as the market changed," Salton said. The listing price was $689,000. It finally sold at $575,000 in February and went to settlement March 5.

The house had a "gourmet kitchen," for instance, but the countertops were laminate, not granite, and the floor was linoleum, not tile.

The owners considered remodeling but decided that it could cost several thousand dollars and a buyer "might not like what they did," Salton said. Instead, they got estimates on remodeling costs and adjusted the price.

The sellers did not agree to be interviewed, but Salton said she had discussed with them why the price needed to be adjusted and why staying on the market for so long was making their situation worse.

Salton didn't like being in the position of "chasing the market down." And she said the lack of bids proved her theory that time is not a friend to home sellers.

"When your house goes on the market, the most showings will be in the first five weeks, particularly in weeks two and three. After five weeks, things just drop off. That's why it's so critical that it be priced properly and that it put its best face forward right when it goes on the market."

Paint, clean the decks and siding, or change carpets before you go on the market, she said. But be warned: "You can still get lowball offers in this market."

Kevin Miles, who bought the Ashburn house, said, "What stood out about the house is that it had a lot of the features that my wife and I really wanted and it showed really well. And the house looked like it was very well maintained."

Having a separate dining room was a must for Miles's wife, Tammy. Both wanted the extra space in the bedrooms after being in a townhouse with a 3-year-old and an infant. And they loved the two-car garage.

But it was the price that really got them interested, said Miles, who works for a defense contractor. The couple had looked with agent Charlie Rose of Long & Foster at about 22 other houses in Springfield and Ashburn. Their budget was $600,000. "When we saw this house, it had everything we wanted and the price was right."

Another plus: The sellers paid their closing costs.

Stagecraft

Meg O'Connell's empty condo in the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria was on the market for four months before she received an offer she and her husband would accept.

"We tried a lot of things," she recalled. "We thought, 'Oh, gosh, the appeal of Old Town is going to be the biggest draw.' "

But, "With all of the new properties on the market, we were just not able to compete."

So O'Connell, who lives in North Carolina, worked with agent Kelly Virbickas of the Schaeffer-Chetrit Group of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Dupont Circle to even the odds. Their eventual solution? Staging -- meaning they hired a company to decorate the property so it looked warm and cozy.

Virbickas said the unit got a contract two days after the Back Door, a staging company and store in Arlington, came in to set up. "And they hadn't even finished yet -- the window treatments weren't even up."

O'Connell said that Virbickas suggested staging early on but that she and her husband, James Collie, had been reluctant to invest the $5,000 it would cost.

But the 1,600-square-foot unit, with two bedrooms and two baths, just sat at its original listing of $609,000. They cut the price $25,000. It still sat.

The unit was painted and cleaned after the renters left, but Virbickas thought it just didn't show well vacant. "It was hard for people to envision living there," she said.

In January, the sellers agreed to offer to pay six months of condo fees. Still no luck.

When the idea of staging came up again, O'Connell agreed. The staging cost about the same as condo fees would have.

The place drew a contract for $574,900 in mid-February; settlement is scheduled soon.

O'Connell said staging made more of a difference than she thought it would. "Kelly sent me pictures of what they had done, and it looked really cute. They made it look really cozy."

And, she said, "of course, we're big HGTV fans and see those shows [on staging] all the time."

A Study in Patience

It took about four months for LaDoris and Steven Puryear to get a contract on their Springfield split-foyer house.

They had lived in the 30-year-old five-bedroom home for 13 years; it was their first house together. But their five kids were grown and LaDoris had always wanted a new house with a big open kitchen.

She was in no hurry, though, and she didn't want to buy until they had sold.

The house cost them $184,000 in 1994. Over the years, they upgraded it -- remodeling the kitchen and adding higher-end appliances, installing hardwood floors, adding a deck, updating the bathrooms. "We tried to do a major project every year," she said.

They knew there was a lot of competition to sell, and they didn't want to slash their asking price to draw in buyers. "We set what we thought was a good price," she said.

They got their list price of $549,000 at settlement last month, but they also contributed $16,000 in closing costs.

Their agent, Wayne Lee of Buyer's Advantage in Woodbridge, said they received four bids.

LaDoris Puryear, who sells custom window treatments from a home office, said the deal worked well, because she got the new home she had always wanted for a good price. "We offered closing help to our buyers because we got closing help on our new home" in Manassas, which was available because the builder's contract had fallen through.

She did have one regret, though. "We bought a custom double door for the house a year ago. If I'd known we were going to sell, I would not have bought that door."