Our office just closed a sale with a couple of interesting back stories.
The property is a large Hill Section home at 508 Larsson (5br/6ba, 4680 sqft.).
It's a fully custom build completed in 2009. Everything we had to say in the MLS description is true – it's a labor of love, over-engineered, materials from all over the world. A really solid, unique home. So much to appreciate.
And yet, the first time we listed it for sale, we could not easily sell 508 Larsson.
Listing in 2016-2019
That process began in 2016.
The first price our seller put on it was $4.295M. That was what they wanted. We later cut to $3.999M. The market wasn't there.
We came out anew in 2017 at a similar price point, but later cut to $3.695M. Then, we drew an offer after about 4 months. That 2017 buyer crapped out, however, so we removed the listing and took more than a year off.
Trying again in 2019, we had interest, but no offers, until almost year's end.
We closed a sale in Nov. 2019 at $3.275M.
OK, so maybe the first price in '16 had been off a bit. We're all grown-ups here, we can admit it. (The seller would.)
The 2025 Sale Process Sure Was Different
Fast forward to 2025.
This time, we put the property up online as a "coming soon" listing on Feb. 1. Asking price: $4.249M.
Almost instantly, we got an offer from buyers who hadn't even seen the property in person yet.
They knew what they wanted, what they liked, and had an agent who knew the property very well from before. They just knew it was a match.
It was also a furious time in the market, 3 weeks after the tragic L.A. county fires. The buyers were facing competition everywhere. It made sense to throw down.
Now that the sale has closed (at the asking, $4.249M), it shows technically 0 DOM. That is, zero days on market.
Usually you'll see a 0 when a property was sold off-market and just input into the MLS later. In this case, we were on the MLS, just not in the "active" status – DOM don't accumulate in "coming soon" – and that's how the buyers came to see it, and buy it.
The Property Almost Didn't Come to Market
There was a bit more of a back story to this year's sale.
The sellers, for their own reasons, had initially contracted with a "quick cash offer" company to buy the house from them.
Turns out, that easy-peasy cash offer was too good to be true.
If we don't name the company, maybe we can dish a little.
Our perception was that this "cash offer" company that ensnared the sellers is accustomed to working with much more "desperate" sellers, less sophisticated folks, or people who, for whatever reason, can't bear the thought of seeing their house on the market.
There was the initial offer, and signed purchase contract.
And then the offer kept getting reduced. And reduced.
It seems that once they had the sellers under contract, dreaming of their quick and easy close and a nice payday, the "cash offer" buyers had leverage over the sellers to keep reducing the offer. The sellers would still feel an obligation to continue. They would listen as all the "reasons" were given why the offer had to be lowered. And closing was (supposedly) always just a few days away.
The sellers behaved honorably, like they were trying to keep the deal together, while the "cash offer" company behaved like they were taking advantage of the sellers.
One day, it was too much. We got a call from the sellers, in which one of the first questions was, "How does one go about canceling escrow?"
Obviously, they did cancel, we took over, we got the property to market, and we netted our clients more than the "cash offer" company had first promised, along with some personally important terms that smoothed the sellers' transition.
It was a sale almost $1M above the 2019 trade, with almost no market time. Heck, we got $49K more than the "cash offer" company had listed the property for on the MLS (incompetently). The whole deal turned into something of a "rescue" after the sellers' horrid experience with the supposedly "easier" cash buyer process.
At the end, we have happy sellers and buyers, who get one of the truly special properties in the Hill Section to make their own.
And we can share this warning: Those "cash buyer" companies are good at promising, but might not always deliver.
Please see our blog disclaimer.
Listings presented above are supplied via the MLS and are brokered by a variety of agents and firms, not Dave Fratello or Edge Real Estate Agency, unless so stated with the listing. Images and links to properties above lead to a full MLS display of information, including home details, lot size, all photos, and listing broker and agent information and contact information.
