Hot real estate in the Bay Area is not a new thing, but the selling price in a Sunnyvale home recently shocked even the listing agent, KPIX 5 reported.
“By far the craziest that I’ve ever experienced,” realtor Joe Polyak of Rise Homes said.
A 1,300-feet single-family home, with three bedrooms and two baths, on Flin Way, was sold for $823,000 more than its listing price.
The home was valued at around $2 million, Polyak said, as the neighboring home was sold for $2.6 million.
But Polyak’s client’s home just sold for $2.68 million – something that he did not expect.
“I couldn’t ever have imagined that,” Polyak said. “It is insane.”
Thirty-five offers were made on the property when it was opened to bids.
The spike in home prices in the Bay Area was triggered by the increased demand and low inventory, said Shapiro Group’s lead agent Gary Shapiro.
The trend will continue into next year, he said, adding that there can possibly be an improvement in the inventory. However, it still cannot keep up with the demand.
“We’re at a point where inventory is at an all-time low that I’ve ever seen and this is my 37th year of full-time real estate in Santa Clara County,” he said.
The bidding competition on the Sunnyvale property was sparked through a common strategy used by Polyak, he explained.
“When we’re in a sellers’ market most agents will recommend a low conservative asking price knowing that the amount of demand will create multiple offers and cause the buyers to bid the price up,” he said. “I think the agent and seller should be extremely happy with the final sale price for such a small house, absolutely.”
Polyak said: “That is what we did, and that is what we always do is list it a little bit lower.”
The listing price was set by Polyak at $1.38 million as he thought of it to cause a bidding war.
Still, he did not expect the high amounts buyers have to offer.
“We were not expecting that and neither were the sellers, to a good surprise, obviously,” he said.
