I’m super excited about our new listing at 312 S Mansfield! The property is a Fully Remodeled Single Story Country English Home with soaring ceilings in the living and dining rooms, kitchen with Thermador appliances and a walk-in pantry, 4 beds + 3.5 baths (including a primary suite and secondary suite that each have French doors to the backyard), and a yard with pool + grass + stone lounging deck, and a 2 car garage. The house and yard are serene, upscale, and done in classic great taste! It’s the perfect mix of charm (with original leaded stained glass windows) and modern upgrades such as recessed lights, sound system, and wide plank hardwood floors. Houses that are move-in-ready are a treat and this one feels like it checks all the boxes!
I’m super excited about our new listing at 6325 Primrose! The house is brand new construction and right near The Hollywood Bowl. It’s vertical with a 2 car garage on the ground floor, a kitchen + living + dining + private yard one flight up, a bedroom suite + powder room on the next level, and 2 bedroom suites + a huge deck with amazing hilltop views + laundry on the top floor. The interior living space alone is over 2100 sq ft. If you add in the decks, terraces, and 2 car garage, it’s over 3100 square feet. The finishes are cool including the white rift cut oak kitchen, Carrera marbles throughout, and peacock blue lacquered niche cabinets. There are no shared walls in the small lot subdivision and the property is gated and its own little community. What stands out most about the space is all the natural sunlight from windows everywhere!
I’m excited for the relaunch of our listing at 843 S Cochran for 2,575,000 this Monday, now newly hedged, with trees just up to the regulation height in accordance with city laws! The living room in this house is showstopping and beautiful! The layout of the house is amazing with 4 bedrooms + 3.5 baths, and a great front yard and backyard because the house is on an 8324 sq ft lot. This house was recently gutted and extensively remodeled so everything, including all appliances and tubs, showers, fixtures, etc. are brand new and never ever used. We’ll be open Tuesday 11-2 to show!
I’m excited that we closed this week on the condo at 10490 Wilshire #602, representing lovely first time homebuyers. We closed on 628 N Highland, representing the proud owners, who left California. And we closed on 1106 S Highland, representing the awesome sellers for the second time (hard to say if we enjoyed working with them more this time or last!) I’m excited for the 2 properties we’re closing this week, representing sellers, Tuesday and Thursday!
The moment with the biggest tension for sellers in transactions is post inspection period when a buyer submits a request for repairs. Sellers very often articulate that buyers should assume that houses will need upgrades and repairs, list prices take condition into account, and buyers expecting sellers to pay for every item needing repair or upgrade in the next 5 years is unreasonable. Buyers are often anxious about their purchase, short on cash given high interest rates combined with prices that went higher during Covid, and buyers are eager to request that sellers pay for repairs they call “necessary” for “health and safety.” Aggressive agents will send a huge request for repairs with warnings about needing to share reports with future buyers and threats of cancellation. Sellers mostly don’t want to cancel and they also rightfully feel manipulated and like the deal is being unfairly renegotiated when they get a huge request.
My approach in life is a general standard of reasonableness. I believe in listing houses at fair market value, taking into account the condition and features of the offering. Buyers determine market value. As a local area specialist listing agent, we intuit and then through buyer interaction and market exposure, we confirm fair market value . I see in our present deals that when a request for repair is made of a seller for 30,000 or less, neither side is apt to cancel, and both sides are likely to work together and figure out how to move the deal forward. With requests that go way above, the sellers shut down and disengage. We recently received requests on listings for 83,500 and 110,760 and both our sellers responded with zero and a notice to perform. A request on a listing for 18,900 from a buyer got signed immediately by our sellers and the buyers sent full contingency removal shortly after. Both agents who sent the huge requests sent us warnings about needing to share reports and disclose the house’s condition to future buyers. Both threatened that their buyers would cancel, although in real life neither of their buyers canceled. Both were fiercely trying so hard to negotiate and in truth, the agent who sent a reasonable request and got an immediate favorable response ultimately negotiated best.
The best deals are the ones where neither side needs to push the other side SO hard. The best sellers price their house at a number that will feel comfortable to buyers. The best buyers offer the sellers a price that feels comfortable given their list price. The best agents attend inspections and follow all the details, completely understand the contract and the escrow process, and have the skill to guide their clients expertly and judiciously. The best people have reasonable and fair expectations of: the house, the inspectors, the process, the parties, the emotions!!!!!! My favorite part of the job is getting to meet humans I admire and wish to emulate because of the admirably fair + reasonable + graceful way they navigate their dealings.
Our sellers at 312 S Mansfield fall into the category of best sellers because they’re smart, generous, have pride of ownership, and are super reasonable. I find that buyers and sellers on all the houses tend to be similar to each other, so I’m super excited to meet the buyers this house attracts! If My Mom was alive she would love to visit this open house today. She would ohhh and ahhh over the elegant furniture everywhere. I think, like the sellers, her favorite would be the boucle mushroom stools in the living room. Having a true green thumb and artistic flair, My Mom would love the artistic new antique outdoor pots and manicured plants especially purchased by the sellers to treat new buyers to exterior spaces that are a treat! Around the holidays, I always miss My Mom the most. I wish My Mom was here to walk through that house, to sit next to each other and pray for the new year together, and to savor all of our favorite foods after services (and figure out what we’d tweak to get each dish even more delicious before the next holiday)!
Come visit us at open houses today!!!
Xoxoxoxo,
Sheri