Contract on Beechcroft

35 Beechcroft, a completely rebuilt and expanded 1955 house and currently listed at $3.995 million. The owners paid $4.995 for it in 2006, and have had it on the market since January 2018, when they asked $5.385.

Back in December the listing was amended to read: “Seller is accepting offers ranging from $3.495M - $3.995M. Offers are due by December 4, 2019 at 5 p.m. Offers will be reviewed prior to the deadline and seller may choose to accept an offer prior to December 4, 2019.” Judging from today’s date, it’s not obvious that this accepted offer came in by that deadline, but, interestingly, all offers were to be submitted to something called sparkoffer.com, an entity I’ve never heard of. I went to the site and, so far as I can tell, it’s an operation that facilitates a buyer and seller communicating directly. That might be a good idea, but I know that back in my lawyering days the quickest way to derail a settlement or business deal was to put the parties in the same room together, unchaperoned.

Maybe real estate’s different. My guess, though, is that knocking a million-four off the asking price contributed more to this listing’s ultimate success than any app.