Behind the Scenes – Selling my Condos

Here’s a behind the scenes look at how and why I sold my Capitol Hill investment condos. Figured some of you may be interested in what my thought process was and what we did and didn’t do. I certainly found it interesting to have to take my own advice!

Why sell?

It was a tough decision! Both were cash flow positive, both have been appreciating like crazy, but we’ve decided that we’d rather have our real estate investment dollars invested into something more interesting than Seattle condos. For instance, I’d rather have that same money invested into a single-family home or small multi-family home in an area that is zoned low-rise residential so we could at some point tear down the home and build townhomes or an apartment. Or, I’d rather buy a single family home on a nice lot and tear it down and build a modern spec home. At least, that was our original intention and we had the proceeds of the first sale put into a 1031 exchange, but we ended up finding a new primary residence and are using the proceeds as a down payment.

The story behind Trace Lofts

I bought Trace Lofts back in 2007 at a time when Pike/Pine wasn’t a restaurant/bar hot spot and there was plentiful free street parking. We lived there for years and loved it with the neighborhood transitioning around us, but we eventually outgrew the small closet and single bathroom and so our loft became a rental property.

Prep

After being a rental for several years our loft needed a little rejuvenating so we:

• Re-painted ($2,477): the loft hadn’t been re-painted since I painted it in 2007/2008 so I consulted with our stagers, picked a neutral color and had the entire unit re-painted (except for the baseboard).
• Re-carpeted ($829): the bedroom was the only carpeted area and it was in a need of a refresh, a steam clean wasn’t going to cut it. I bought some remnant and pad from Carpet Liquidators for $529 and paid another $300 to have it installed.
• Upgraded the bathroom ($1,753): a previous tenant had damaged the countertop in the bathroom so I had the countertop replaced with a piece of slab and upgraded to an under-mount sink. As the floor was some recycled vinyl type flooring that didn’t seem too premium, I also had the floor tiled. Total cost for all this was $1,753.
• Deep clean ($249): from Susan’s Green Cleaning

I debated re-finishing the floors at a cost of $4,381 and/or replacing the kitchen countertops. But decided we had to draw the line somewhere and figured the new owner could decide themselves if they liked the lived in reclaimed floor look or wanted a newer cleaner look. And the countertops in the kitchen didn’t look too dated (yet).

Marketing

To market the loft we:

• Staged with Spade and Archer for $2,951. Clients often question the value in staging but considering how cheap it is relative to everything else, I think a well-staged place shows a lot better than an empty space and that you’ll make the money back.
• Had professional photos taken
• Had a 2d floor plan produced
• Created a 3d tour with Matterport
• Had a friend shoot a drone photo of the exterior of the building
• Two open houses, one during the week and one on the weekend

I see a lot of agents doing elaborate lifestyle videos but figured that given most real estate websites don’t have any way to promote the video that it wouldn’t get a lot of views, and so it wouldn’t be worth the money.

Pricing

At the beginning of the year I figured we’d be lucky to sell Trace for a little over $700k. Based on recent sales on the 2nd and 3rd floors, I felt we would be able to get at least $715k, but given that this was a larger corner unit with a better floor plan, felt that we’d be happy getting $725k. Unlike most agents who price way low, I decided we’d be happy getting just one offer so listed it at what we wanted to get, $725k. As luck would have it, we had 4 offers. Three of them over $750k. With a little negotiating we got $765k with no contingencies, the buyer taking on the upcoming special assessment and $50k of early release earnest money. We did take the highest offer.

In terms of timing, we listed on a Tuesday and reviewed offers a week later.

The Meritage

I bought The Meritage back in 2007 and lived there only briefly because I found and fell in love with Trace Lofts. I did try and sell the Meritage shortly after closing on it but it was right as the market was turning and I had over priced it so it didn’t sell! I ended up turning it into a rental. But couldn’t cash flow it as a long-term rental so I furnished it allowing me to charge a bit more, and so I had a stream of corporate relocation type people stay there.

Prepping

This condo needed less work than the loft as it had been recently painted. All we did was replace the carpet in the living room, bedroom and den. Carpet + installation was $2,419 from Carpet Liquidators. Plus we had it deep cleaned for $209 from Susan’s Green Cleaning.

I debated re-doing the countertops, they were black granite tile after all! But after consulting with my real estate agent friends, they didn’t feel it was worth the money and that I’d have no problem selling the condo as-is. The other upgrade we could have done would have been to do hardwoods throughout, but again, didn’t feel like it was worth the time, effort and money.

Marketing