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8110 Madrillon Springs Lane

8110 Madrillon Springs Lane | Dunn Loring Townhouse

Property Overview

Timing the market can be a tricky endeavor.

Our clients had known for over a year that they were planning on moving in March 2020. That was the ideal time. They would get out in front of the spring market and capture the buyers that had been waiting through the winter for fresh new inventory.

Our plan was flawless. We were watching the market like a hawk. We knew all the recent comparable properties. And we knew the pros and cons of the home we were listing.

The plan was to list the townhouse for $699,900. The townhouses’ value on paper appeared to be around $710,000. We wanted to capture all those buyers that had search parameters up to $700,000.

But then something interesting happened; prices kept going up.

A few properties in January closed above their respective asking price.

And then in February, a few more properties close for higher than their listing price.

We got to a point in early March when we needed to rethink our strategy because of the recent sales in the neighborhood. Instead of being in the $699k – $710k range, it was clear we were now in the $715k – $730k range.

This next part is important: We want to use the listing price to get buyers excited about the property. But at the same time, we also wanted to walk the fine line of not leaving money on the table by pricing the home below market value.

One would never list a $1 million house at $899,900 expecting the home to sell for $150k over the asking price.

To a lesser extent, the $699k figure we had come up with was now looking like it would be in danger of underpricing the property.

With the new information in hand, we decided to pivot and list the home for $724,900. We recommended this price and the sellers agreed that the market had shifted and a new price was warranted.

Watching the market and deciding to change the price was the easy part.

The difficult part was for my clients to de-clutter and organize their home. As parents of two small children, their townhouse was busting at the seams with toys and random belongings.

The sellers ended up renting a storage unit and they were able to transfer many of their belongings from the townhouse to the storage unit.

Online Marketing

With St. Patrick’s Day falling on the same day that we listed the property, we decided to do a St. Patrick’s Day-themed listing video.

We posted the video on all major social media platforms

The Facebook video reached over 26,000 people in the Northern Virginia area.

St. Patrick's Day Post

The YouTube video was watched over 900 times.

The Instagram video reached over 750 people.

In total, we reached over 28,000 people with our video marketing efforts.

Results

We listed the townhome on March 19, 2020. To say a lot was happening in the world would be a drastic understatement. With the uncertainty around safety concerns and the well-being of our clients and prospective purchasers, we decided to cancel the open house. We decided to allow private showings. We prohibited overlapping appointments. Hand sanitizer and shoe covers were provided to all visitors.

Even with the looming pandemic, the last-minute price increase and global unrest, the property ended up receiving multiple offers.

The winning offer was above list price and came in at $730,000 with no home inspection contingency. The decision to increase the listing price from $699,900 to $724,900 paid off. The cherry-on-top was that we negotiated a free-rent back with the winning offer.