OK, everybody in class stare at the single-family at 4023 N Paulina St. It obviously wants our attention, so we’ll give it some.
In May this 6,400 square-foot, six-bedroom Victorian home went on the market for $1.98 million, and stayed at that price until the end of September, when it dropped to $1.85 million. Since that time, it’s dropped in price 23 times, always by $1,000 each time, sometimes as frequently as six times a week. At this pace, the home should reach its 2005 sales price of $1.75 million around the turn of the new year.
This isn’t a case of a Realtor feeling around for a sweet spot. It’s a case of a Realtor trying to keep a listing near the top of everyone’s “recently reduced” search results, day in and day out. Congratulations — we see it. How’s that working out for the seller?
Silly tactics aside, it appears to be a charming house, featuring a Christopher Peacock kitchen, a wrap-around porch, second-floor laundry, a three-car garage, and a large yard. It has a convenient location, too — WalkScore.com gives it a “Very Walkable” score of 89 and an “Excellent Transit” score of 74.
This is completely obnoxious. I may be wrong, but who controls the MLS? Realitors? Why not say it must be at least 1% change to come up as price changed and only one per week.
Hi Alan,
Midwest Real Estate Data, LLC administrates/ “controls” /”is” the MLS. There is a partnership of course with brokerages and local governing bodies. There are tons of state and Federal regulations and politics involved in running an MLS. The majority of rules and regulations are followed by the vast majority of paid members (which I’m a dues paying member), some not so much and fines are given, memberships are banned etc…
Although I may not be ready to follow this pricing strategy described above for a multi-million dollar home, I’m not ready to ban it either. As mentioned, Realtors and the MLS are highly regulated by the state and Federal laws. The above example is a little more about marketing…this is simply choosing a marketing strategy to help sell a property with equal opportunity for all to buy. In affect, no harm no foul when it comes to important fair housing laws.
The jury here feels this is a stupid trick. Maybe. But to ban or over regulate price changes is a slippery slope. We should not limit the client’s ability to change a price anytime. The MLS is the best tool we have to reflect this real time and factual data.
This doesn’t strike me as something a client would do.
It’s price-change spam, and deceptive as hell when coupled with the opening MLS remarks: “$154,000 PRICE REDUCTION!”
Note that the listing has even more stupid Realtor tricks. The number of bedrooms above grade is stated as 6, though one is listed as an “additional room #2 * Bedroom #6” on the lower-level rather than as a bedroom. Two bedrooms are on the 3rd floor and I’d be wondering whether they’re code-compliant.
“But to ban or over regulate price changes is a slippery slope.”
Ok, I think I’ll tend to agree with that part.
But then stipulate that in order to rise to the top of the MLS list as an ‘updated’ listing (and have the last modified date change), the price has to change by at leaset 1%, and even then can only rise to the top at most once per week (or maybe even only once per month).
Graceland West?
Did they move Graceland West?
Did they move Paulina?
If not then calling this Graceland West is akin to calling Humboldt Park, Bucktown Further.
Although, that block of Paulina is quite nice.
Perhaps West West Graceland.
East Ravenswood?
Here’s the official Yo definition of Graceland West:
Graceland West is part of Lake View although, since it lies north of Irving Park Rd, some people consider it part of Uptown. It’s not.
The neighborhood spans the area from Irving Park Rd (4000 N) to Montrose Ave (4400 N), from Clark St west to Ashland Ave (1600 W). It takes its name from Graceland Cemetery which runs along the east side of Clark St.
Graceland West was my appellation, not the Realtor’s. Obviously I was off by a block.
FYI: The Chicago Neighborhood Map, 2nd Ed., carves out Irving Park/Ravenswood/Montrose/Ashland as “Southeast Ravenswood.”
That’s ok Joe.
I seem to recall Joe Zekas referring to some realtor referring to Uptown as North Lincoln Park in the early 90’s or so. Maybe it was just a comparison and not a “renaming”.
Joe Z,
Stupid yes. I am only addressing the price changes and not other “tricks” in the listing however.
As far as pricechanges being deceptive… the asking price is what it is. Who cares if it dropped $100,000 or $1000? If the price is right for someone, they will come and buy it. If it’s overpriced and there is simply no market, than it will sit. I think real home buyers can decide for themselves if they want to look at this home or not despite the 23 price drops.
nwzimmer, the listing will come up in specific “price change” searches. It’s not “pushed to the top” of anything. If you are tracking price changes for a certain price range, yes it will come up. And, maybe it will signal to someone just to come in and make a low offer and try to get it done. Otherwise, the listing can be ignored.
A legitimate concern here may be that every Realtor, agent and seller may do this constant pricedropping and then you have a big mess on the MLS or wherever you’re looking at properties. My take is this would be rejected by the market ( for the most part it would not achieve the bottom line of selling for top dollar), so the practice would not be employed by the vast majority of agents, sellers and Realtors.
IrishPirate,
We ran group ad campaigns for builders who were active in Buena Park in the late 80s, which they were pitching as “Lincoln Park North.”
The ads featured a polar bear on a surfboard with the tag line “Catch the wave north.”
We put together a coordinated open house event one Sunday on Kenmore. The day before the event, local gangs stole all the fresh sod from the parkway / front lawns and sold it back to the developers at a premium price just in time for the event.
One issue with doing this is keeping up with all the marketing around selling a home. Often it is more than just changing the price in the MLS. In this specific case the agent used Postlets.com to market the listing online. Postlets.com then syndicates out to multiple sites. Because the agent didn’t change it everywhere, every day, Zillow (disclosure, site I work for) now has a listing price different than that in the MLS because we are getting data about this home from Postlets. If we have the wrong data, I suspect other sites do too. And what about any printed flyers he made, etc. Causes confusion in the marketplace, unless you are going to be relentless in keeping everything updated. Also, listing price histories are very often published online now. So it is very transparent what the agent/seller is trying to do.
Sod stealing. Whew, those were some desperados.
Even 11th Warders would be impressed with the creativity of that. Or should I say “dat”.
Of course they would do it while on the government clock.
Sarah, I agree this my not be optimal marketing… this is one value ad to working with a professional buyer’s agent that is not easily “confused” by these “tricks” and old market data (there are agents we run into that are easily confused, like getting asked by an agent on a showing “what neighborhood is this?”).
It’s also why a good MLS is the best source for real time information. Many agents can get the straight story with a simple phone call and help clients figure out if they want to see this or not.
As for the buying public looking at third party sites for home listings, they may see the old price on a particular day while a real and significant price change has been made on the MLS on a good property. By the time they see it delayed on the third party site and take action to see a property, it may be under contract already.
If a price change is really aggressive, usually many agents will show the property the next day if possible and multiple offers can result. This was just the case on a Sheridan Park condo I showed that dropped $30K and several showings and offers resulted in a couple days.
That said, these price changes may not be good marketing and there may be different prices listed on third party sites, but I think the issue here is “should it be allowed?”.
What is the listing agent trying to do here other than get attention for the listing? Of course the price drops are transparent and asking price may not even matter to experienced agents… the only thing that matters is if two parties out there want to put this deal together. They could put $1 dollar in the MLS next to draw attention too (I think).
IrishPirate,
11th Warders would never steal sod to sell.
They would sell you city-owned sod.
City workers once offered to pave the parking lot on one of my developments with city asphalt. It was a $13,000 job, per my contractor. The city workers wanted me to a) purchase $1,000 worth of “raffle tickets” and b) have my contractor build a brick barbecue in the crew foreman’s back yard. I respectfully declined.
Also, I give more credit to the unrepresented buying public if they are interested in buying a home without an agent than to be confused… I think a serious buyer can be put off by this agent or buyer if they are not truly negotiable, but I don’t think confused. If buying, they should already have a good idea of what this area will bear for a home like this and what they are willing to spend for their little piece of the pie.
I think the biggest misrepresentation about this home is the square footage. We actually created the floor plan of this property for the previous agent in 2003. We have the usable interior sf. at 4700, the total interior sf. at 4985 and the total sf. including the exterior walls at 5650. This calculation was based on the home as it was in 2003, if additional space was added then the total sf. would be different today. I would be happy to provide the floor plan for review if requested.