You are living in a fine neighborhood. Then quite unexpectedly–and despite your diligent efforts to fight City Hall–a gas station framed in neon signs is built on a vacant lot next door.
Your new neighbor is a 24-hour operation, so you’re treated to the sights and sounds of cars pulling in and out of the station around the clock. Indeed, some teenagers like to tear away, their tires squealing, their stereos blasting.
You hate the gas station and decide to sell your property to get away from it. But how can you escape quickly and get as much money for your house as your fishing buddy expects for the same kind of house just two streets away?
The answers? You can’t.
But believe it or not, a tiny percentage of home buyers don’t care if they live next to a gas station. Still, they’ll demand a lower price for your place than they’d pay for your buddy’s house just two streets away.
If you live in what some real estate agents classify as a “problem child” location, “you’ll have to take less money,” stresses real estate agent Rose Marie Pasicznyk.
If you reside close to a gas station, a strip shopping center, a freight-train line, a water tower, a landfill, a busy highway or a sooty factory, you can be sure that many home seekers will reject your place without even visiting it. And with fewer buyers available, you’ll probably command a lower price for your place than a like home will sell for in a different part of the same area, says William H. Lublin, the broker and co-owner of five Century 21 offices.
“There is a purchaser for every piece of property, but the law of supply and demand still operates when it comes to price,” he says. In other words, as fewer buyers want your home, its value slips.
Lublin grew up on a heavily traveled street, and he loved the setting. As a young person, he could walk to nearby stores or hop a bus at the corner, even before he had a driver’s license in his wallet. Across the street stood a public library, with lots of resources for last-minute homework assignments.
What’s more, Lublin says, he was drilled by his parents on the perils of living on a heavily traveled road. So the danger of a pedestrian accident was dramatically diminished in his case. Still, Lublin acknowledges that many parents of young children will automatically reject a home on a busy street. Others fret over the noise, car fumes or danger to pets.
Only 10 percent of buyers feel comfortable living on a heavily traveled road, estimates James G. Brophy, an associate broker for RE/MAX. Even if you live on a prestigious avenue, chances are you’ll have to take a slice off the prevailing price in your community, he says.
Virtually every home seller has heard the old cliche about the three key variables in real estate: “location, location, location.” But few realize that it’s not just the general area where you live that counts, but the very specific site, your “micro-location,” Brophy says.
What’s difficult is that not all sellers admit that their home’s location is a problem when, in fact, it is. Realtors have heard countless times from household members who insist on a full price for a house on a busy street “because it never bothered us.”
In effect, some sellers refuse to acknowledge that their judgments about a specific location don’t jibe with those of the buying public at large, Brophy says.
“If you love your busy street, you’re the perfect buyer for your own house,” Brophy says.
Yet assuming that staying put is not an option, it’s essential that you and your agent carefully price and promote a property that has what some in the realty field call “an incurable defect,” or an “adverse influence.”
Here are three pointers:
1. Make sure your agent checks comparable sales for nearby homes.
Pricing properly can be a tricky proposition for the home that sits next to the new gas station. The most relevant reference for the property’s value would be another like home on the same street that sits on the other side of the gas station and, coincidentally, sold within the last year.
But since the chances of finding such a comparable sale are remote, Pasicznyk suggests you consider calling in a professional appraiser, plus three real estate agents who know the local turf, before deciding on the right price for your home.
Before you’ve signed an agreement to list your house with an agent, it’s perfectly appropriate to request pricing opinions from two or more agents.
“This is not a hate situation,” says Pasicznyk, noting that truly professional agents don’t resent competition for listings.
If you seek out three, or even four, opinions on price and find that any one of the agents or the appraiser stands out from the pack with an unusually high or low judgment, that view may be worthy of rejection, the pros say.
2. Spiff up your home to attract real estate agents.
Suppose you own a condo-apartment that overlooks an unsightly parking lot. Still, you can enhance the appeal of the property with an exquisite interior: fresh paint and beautiful (yet inexpensive) new window treatments.
“You’re limited on what you can do outside, but you can make it gorgeous inside,” Brophy says. By freshening the interior, you’ll partially compensate for the home’s external defect and help lure buyers’ agents to preview the property for their clients.
One excellent way of drawing agents to see any property is to hold what is called a “broker’s open,” an open house for agents throughout the area that’s staged by your listing agent. The more agents you can impress with the interior of your home, the more prospects you can expect to come by for a visit, Brophy says.
3. Recognize that not every supposed defect is a negative.
Perhaps you’re a childless individual whose home sits alongside a fancy elementary school and a neighborhood pool. You neither like swimming nor take a particular interest in kids. Hence, the proximity of the school-pool complex, and resulting traffic and noise, is a negative for you.
But now imagine that you were the mother of young children. In that case, you might be delighted that your offspring could conveniently and safely attend the school and swim at the pool. Chances are you’d see the home’s location as a positive.
As a single person, it would be a mistake to judge your home’s location based solely on your outlook. Indeed, your property may not be a “problem child” at all. Indeed, your location could be a positive, if your listing agent markets it well, says Lublin.”We sell neighborhoods one home at a time, and many things are just a matter of perspective.”
