Why Even ‘Ordinary’ Homes Sell for $500,000 Over the List Price
Almost a quarter of U.S. home sales were above the asking price last year, with an average premium of $7,000. These sellers managed to get a lot more.
When Bill Malcolm listed his childhood home in August in Sunnyvale, Calif., for $1.688 million, he thought he was asking a lot. After all, the ordinary, one-story house was less than 2,000 square feet, hadn’t been structurally renovated since his parents bought it for $27,500 in 1963, and was on only a third of an acre. But he figured its location close to the headquarters of Apple and Google would command a premium.
It did: a premium of about $782,000 above his asking price, selling for $2.47 million a few weeks later.
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