Video series - THE RIGHT DIRT

In this video series we’re at one of my listings in the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, known for being one of the most desirable neighborhoods in not just Palo Alto, but in the entire Silicon Valley. In the heart of Palo Alto, we are minutes from downtown Palo Alto, popular parks, Stanford University, and top-ranked schools.

Downtown Palo Alto

From a real estate sale perspective, my initial impressions of the 2-story house was it had 1940s charm with good curb appeal and a deep lot. But the value is in the land when you’re located in such a prestigious neighborhood. Just to give you an idea, the sale price per square foot of land in this neighborhood typically passes $500.

Although the value might be in the dirt, we still wanted to appeal to the largest group of buyers as possible and that means putting in work on the home to showcase its potential. The landscaping was already nicely done but the sellers had just moved out, so we had some work on day one to get the interior open house ready. That included bringing in a hauler to help me take down the drapes, removing the old carpeting, and clearing out all old personal items from the interior. 

As you can see below, by showcasing the wood flooring under the old carpet we really were able to increase the appeal of the home interior.

Once I had determined with the sellers the amount of work they wanted to put into the house, the second part of preparing a home for market is doing off-market promotion and reaching out to local real estate agents to build up anticipation.  

With this high of a price point, the pool of buyers was smaller and the market moves a little slower. So we had the house on market for 2 weeks before I decided to set an offer deadline. 

When we’re taking offers, I play big role here in managing everyones emotions and negotiating on behalf of my clients to get them the highest possible price. In this situation, we had two strong offers over the asking price and my clients opted to do multiple counters and create competition between the remaining buying agents. 

Once we got into contract on Tuesday, the sellers had their money in escrow the following Tuesday. That’s a 7 day close, which is one of the fastest and most impressive closings you can have in real estate.