At $5.8 million, this was [oops! not] a bargain

24 Khakum Wood

24 Khakum Wood

24 Khakum Wood Road, 11,000+ square feet of high quality construction on two acres in one of our nicest neighborhoods, just closed at $5.8 million. We've had ample opportunity to comment on this house over the past nine years as it's sat on the market, unsold, unloved, through various brokers and ever-lower pricing.

Ogilvy started the ball rolling in 2008 at $14.5 million and managed to retain the owners as a client for five years but they must have finally grown dispirited, perhaps even disappointed with the lack of results - certainly they gave him a fair shot - and they, if not their house, moved on. Four years and a couple of brokers later, they've achieved their goal.

The Mickster and I have been working with a $6 million client the past couple of months and are pretty thoroughly acquainted with what's on the market - this one (which was already under contract when we began our search) offers far more than the properties currently in its price range. 

So either it' a huge bargain, which I think it is*, or there are a lot of houses out there that are grossly overpriced. In fact, I think both statements are true.

And a final note: don't wildly overprice your house, because you not only won't get your dream price, you'll ensure that it sits on the market for such a long time that buyers will insist on a large discount from what it would otherwise be worth.

I believe I've mentioned this before.

* UPDATE: I TAKE IT BACK

EOS challenged me to show comparable sales in Khakum Wood that would show that this was a bargain, so I went to the records to prove her wrong. Nope, I was wrong - what was once a hugely popular, highly prestigious neighborhood was hammered by the 2008-2012 crash, and has never come back. The sales shown below include only two post-crash sale higher than 24's selling price, and those were private sales, negotiated between agents for their respective parties, which is hardly a testament to real market value; all the other big sales were pre-crash. So EOS, thank you for forcing me to rely on actual data, rather than my memories and impressions of "back when".

Read 'em and weep

Read 'em and weep