News from the Club October 10, 2011

Persistent Perseverance!    The act of persisting, tenacity, The state or quality of being persistent; persistency,  Continuance of an effect after the cause is removed;  Steady persistence in adhering to a course of action, a belief, or a purpose; steadfastness, continued steady belief or efforts, withstanding discouragement or difficulty; persistence.  These are the two dictionary definitions of the first two words.  In life, work, school, love these could be two of the most important words!  Sort of like “Try, try again”, we have all heard this and this very historic statement culminates in persistence!  As in “Where there is a will, there is a way” and “Survival of the fittest”, these two even older phrases could be summed up in the one word of perseverance!  Put them together and you have an unstoppable, undeniable will and spirit to overcome all obstacles and roadblocks.  “Hang in there”, “don’t give up”, “never say die”, are all very highly used sayings of encouragement and support.  As one of my clients and I found out this week! We had started our listing nearly one year ago on October 22, 2010.  I scrutinized the price and the Sold Comparables and came up with a great list price(or so I thought).  I had done the usual and more advertising with the office tour, Brokers Open House, Public Open House, NWMLS, Windermere website listing, Google, Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com and more.  We had wonderful showings and quite interested buyers but no offers.  We started to lower the price.  We did two large price reductions after the first six months.  We had a few more showings but they were slowing tremendously.  Most of the other comparables had already sold.  We were experiencing one showing every 3-4 weeks.  Finally, coming up on nearly a year we were due to expire at the end of September 2011.  I thought I had no chance to convince my client to continue the listing.  They called that day and surprisingly wanted to keep the listing going for a few more months.  The very next week; an offer!!!  This just goes to show me that even in the overall down economy, the Stanwood and Camano Island Real Estate markets are still healthy.  Clients are buying and homes are selling.  There are currently 38 Pending Sales on Camano alone.  We are still getting new inventory and new buyers!  It doesn’t matter how long a property has been on the market, don’t discount it.  Don’t wait until the home you wants is Pending with another buyer. A property is worth how much a buyer is willing to pay! We can do it!!