Courtesy / Wave5Productions
The century-old home is in turnkey condition after a renovation performed in 2019 and 2020.
May 13, 2022
Buyer pitches $300K over list price on Yarmouth home to avoid bidding war
Courtesy / Wave5Productions
Buyers of a single-family home in Yarmouth avoided a bidding war by offering $300,000 over the list price.
In keeping with the wild ride of home sales throughout Maine, a buyer recently made a successful offer of $315,000 over the list price on a Yarmouth house just hours before it was due to go on the market, in order to avoid a bidding war.
The five-bedroom, Colonial-style house at 1 Lone Pine Lane sold for $1.71 million. Pete Molloy of Town & Shore Real Estate brokered the transaction.
“This was about good timing with a home coming to market and a buyer who had missed out on other properties and recognized the opportunity of avoiding a competitive situation — but still treated it like it was a competitive situation so that it wouldn’t go to the open market,” Molloy told Mainebiz. “Plus it’s a wonderful property.”
The home, on half of an acre, had sold just two years earlier, in May 2020, for $1.05 million.
The house dates back about a century and is in turnkey condition after a renovation performed in 2019 and 2020, according to listing information.
Features include a large mudroom entry with custom cubbies and bench, separate en-suite area off the back of the house, period detailing, modern amenities, full house spray foam insulation, Anderson 400 series windows, new siding and roof, a multizone heating system, additional heat pumps and 27 solar panels.
“It’s one of those houses, where you have old-home charm and everything has been renovated,” said Molloy. “It’s turnkey and a really good value.”
Molloy, who represented the seller, said the listing was about to go live at $1.395 million when he heard from a broker who had clients ready to make an offer.
“The broker reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got clients, they’re ready to go,’” Molloy said. “They asked if we would entertain an offer ahead of time and I said my clients would, it just needed to be compelling enough to not move forward with showing it to the public. The offer was compelling and it accommodated my sellers’ timeline.”
The buyers were aware that the list price was going to be $1.395 million, he said.
But all parties, he said, assumed the $1.395 million would only be a starting point and that the price would escalate once the listing hit the market.
“So these buyers said they wanted to lock it down,” he said.
The buyers are a family from out-of-state, but the wife grew up in Maine and they are looking to return to the area. They were in a transitional period and had been renting but had to move out when their rental was sold. They have been making unsuccessful offers on other properties in the area, shut out for the time by the highly competitive market.
“They had been actively looking for a while, dealing with the challenges of the market,” Molloy said.
He said he’s seen numerous offers over list price over the past year. One home listed for $1.1 million and sold for $1.25 million. Another listing under contract came in at about $100,000 over asking price.
“I’ve had clients go as high as a couple of hundred thousands over,” he said.
Molloy predicted the residential market would plateau and see some settling at some point, but that might not be for a little while longer.
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Anonymous
May 17, 2022
Spray foam insulation is a potent greenhouse gas. Incredibly irresponsible and not a selling point.
Anonymous
May 13, 2022
This is ridiculous. Young Mainers will never be able to buy a home and stay in Maine if this insanity continues.
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