Real Estate Sales Shenanigans

For the past few months I have been looking for a house to buy. It seems that the market has bottomed out, or may already be riding a small upward slope. Today I went to another open house, this one was different that any other I have been to.

The house is a three bedroom, two bath, 1200 square foot ranch style home on a 7,000 square foot lot with a decent pool in a West San Jose neighborhood, near Campbell. It is listed for $300,000, which is unheard of in these areas for a nicely maintained house. That's exactly where the catch is.

The house was open on Saturday and Sunday afternoon and it was a real circus when I was there on Sunday. Throngs of people clogging the halls, rooms and yard. The neighbors probably were upset as well since their quiet streets were turned into a parking lot with cars coming and going.

Inside the house the selling realtor--a short-tempered, middle-aged man dressed in a suit--was barely able to manage the crowd. He didn't really spend time answering questions about the property, instead he handed out forms and sternly instructed people to fill out initial offers on the spot, before 4 PM.

It seems the Silicon Valley housing market has gone crazy again. My current representing realtor, Chisholm Gentry, said he hadn't seen this type of gross underpricing of the house to get people in the doors in his many years on the job. "If you put it on the market for $1 it will sell," he said, noting that this tactic doesn't make sense even in the current market.

I wrote down an initial offer, but I don't really expect it will go anywhere. On to the next open house.