116 Russell Ave, Portola Valley, CA 94028
By Patrick Follow Mon, 28 Dec 2009, 4:54pm 7,825 views 7 comments
In Portola Valley CA 94028
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46 male
Menlo Park, CA
Posted for a reader:
You'll like this...
So, according to Propertyshark.com, Jon Ekoniak and Stephanie Ekoniak bought 116 Russell Ave in Portola Valley for $759,000 in August 2000.
It's a 3br/1.5 ba 1,750 ft2 house with a 6,000 ft2 lot -- by Portola Valley standards, a small house on a tiny lot. Still, it's kind of cute with a small flat yard and it looks like the Ekoniaks put in a new kitchen.
In July 2008, they put the house on the market for around $1.4M.
Makes sense, right? Putting in a new kitchen should let them double their money in less than eight years -- isn't that the American dream?
Unfortunately for the Ekoniaks, they missed the top of the market (circa mid-2007) and got greedy. If they would have asked $1.2M or $1.3M at first, they probably could have sold the house quickly.
Instead, they experienced a year and a half of price attrition. The exact start price is lost to the mists of history -- the MLS is designed to help sellers at the expense of buyers -- but that's what I recall seeing at the time.
We have evidence about what happened afterwards. By September 2008, the Ekoniaks were forced to lower their price to $1.35M, according to PaloAltoOnline.com:
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morguepdf/2008/2008_09_05.paw.section2.pdf
They dropped the price again to $1.3M in November 2008:
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morguepdf/2008/2008_11_14.paw.section3.pdf
By March 2009, they were chasing the market down to $1.2M:
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morguepdf/2009/2009_03_06.paw.section2.pdf
The Ekoniaks finally settled for $1.075M on November 16, 2009:
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Portola-Valley/116-Russell-Ave-94028/home/898936
The cost of being greedy as a seller? Losing around $200-$300K.
Whoops.
-D
PS: Put another way, what's the benefit of waiting as a buyer? Saving $200K-$300K...
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Alexandria, VA
I had my eyes on this 3 story 5 bedroom 4000sq ft house in my area for some time. Not like that I'd buy that property, but for the sake of curiousity. I wanted to see what's going to happen to the biggest house in the block.
It was listed at $799K at early 2008, sitting there for an year or so, then the owner lowered the price to 699K. In Sep 2009, it went to short sale, priced down to 650K. Then it become 495K a couple weeks ago, and disappeared from MLS. I feel kinda sorry for the owner whoever, he/she is though, it looks like what patrick said is right. Greed and wrong timing can cost them chunky loss.
And @thomas, this isn't your first time seeing a guy who has nothing to do with the job gets the job, right? :)
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this place is shit
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Burbank, CA
So $614.29 a square foot is still a 'normal' range for people to consider buying a house? Why, in my mind, does this still reek of insanity?
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Folks,
If I was selling I would also want the best price. These folks are probably Very Beautiful People, and Very Rich. Could be that they know exactly what they are doing.
So the original asking price was too high. Isn't that how negotiations usually commence?
Sounds like these elites were not in a hurry to sell, who can blame them for making sure they get the very best price that they can? They did not lose 200-300K; they did not even lose one dollar. According to this thread they bought for 0.76M and thanks to prop-13 they never did have to pay property tax on a 1M+ home, sold for TAX FREE gain of 0.315M. If they borrowed then it is a very handsome gain.
Now I don't know about the ownership premium they probably paid, but their home averaged about 3-4% annualized increase during a time when most asset classes didn't do so well. Sounds like they know exactly what they are doing.
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mommy,
I agree, it is insane.
But it is insane for us, just like some of the social norms in Saudi Arabia seem insane for us too, - it is foreign to our way of thinking and what we value. However, there are some very rich people attracted to the region who can afford to buy-in to the neighborhood and lifestyle they desire. That is the "fortress" that people speak of.
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seaside says
And @thomas, this isn’t your first time seeing a guy who has nothing to do with the job gets the job, right?
sadly its been more recently the norm! i have seen better times!
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Its also possible he was selling a financial application at Oracle used to analyze stocks, which was his previous job. Who better to sell an application to other end users in the financial industry, than a former user of similar applications in said industry? He may have even been recruited by Oracle because they wanted someone who could relate to their target customers specific needs plus wanted his industry contacts, instead of hiring a salesperson w/ experience selling apps.
Just thought I'd offer up an alternative scenario to the guys past. People with more "soft skills" can and do change industries, job titles etc. more easily than "hard skills" folks like programmers...but I'm sure you already knew that...and yes it is annoying when someone from a different industry w/ different non related previous title steps into a new title industry for that persons co-workers.