Of course now blue Mazda 3 Hatchbacks will pop up everywhere but for two months there were none around Portland for a reasonable price. She gave a local dealer a chance but he was $4000 higher and seemed to barely hold in a laugh when she said what she would pay. Allison wanted this color and since she kept her previous car for 10 years it made sense to wait and buy what she wanted.
She found the above car on AutoTrader.com in Missoula Montana on Friday. We left at 6 AM on Saturday and she owned it at 5 PM. I had put her Neon on Craigslist in Montana just to see if we could sell it saving a long trip back in two cars. At 10 AM a buyer called about her Neon and he bought it at 6PM. Within an hour we went from having two cars to one car. Craigslist is good for some things but still hasn’t helped me sell a house yet.
In those two months she talked to a private seller in Bend who was overpriced as well. He gave her a little hope that he would drop the price but then played some games and she didn’t hound him like he probably expected. He said he would give her an answer after he checked with some dealers. If he was trying to use strategy it didn’t work.
When I posted the Craigslist ad for her I also checked it for a Mazda 3. Lo and behold there was one 40 minutes outside of Missoula Montana, on the way there! She called and the owner’s husband had taken it to Coos Bay! It would take too long to explain what went wrong here but it didn’t work out. Even though there were health issues pushing the sale of the car, he wasn’t willing to try even a little to make it work. We saw too many things going wrong and one of them did. We were glad we decided to go to Montana and get it from a dealer.
So this got me thinking about real estate of course. Some people are skeptical of FSBO’s. Some buyers feel a sense of legitimacy when an agent’s sign is in the yard. I had a flat fee seller that was going to try to find a house on their own to try to save buyer’s agent commission (this rarely works I hear). After two weeks, they called and asked for help because agents and owners wouldn’t call them back. I wondered if people doubted their interest just because they weren’t with an agent.
The Dealers she had contacted said they would call her if they found her very specific “Blue Mazda 3 Hatchback“. Two of the auto dealers called her Saturday while we were driving and said, “We found you a car!” Brand new sedans, not blue and $5000 more than what she would pay. Really…does this work on anyone but the desperate? I may understand why they called if someone said “I am looking for something with four wheels and four doors.” but she was very specific. Which is how used-car salesman get a bad name.
When I first got into real estate I picked up a buyer because the agent had them fly from Maryland to look at a condo that didn’t accept her two large dogs but had “great window coverings.” Her range was $400,000 to $600,000. I found 4 condos in the $400,000 range and two under that. She told me the previous agent couldn’t find anything under $500,000. Which gives real estate agents a bad name. She bought a condo for $425,000.
But this trip story mostly goes to show my belief that the picky buyer is going to win in this market. Allison was willing to go to Montana for what she wanted. It is easier for buyers to find the “one” home now or even the “two” homes.
The losers, i suspect, will be homes in large developments, or Mcmansions. 100’s of homes with the same floorplan where nothing stands out. Another loser in this market will be people who are wishy-washy. They will drive themselves crazy because they will love 5 homes but can’t pull the trigger because a couple of new homes come up everyday. Then they are heart broken when one of the five sells.
Oh and we saw endangered species. The quickly disappearing Hummer, towing a boat traveling 75+mph. I do love Montana’s speed limit in the fuel efficient Mazda. Then again Allison was paying for the gas.
