We have known Jim & Donna Klinge for over a dozen years, having met them in Carlsbad where our children went to the same school. As long time North County residents, it was a no- brainer for us to have the Klinges be our eyes and ears for San Diego real estate in general and North County in particular. As my military career caused our family to move all over the country and overseas to Asia, Europe and the Pacific, we trusted Jim and Donna to help keep our house in Carlsbad rented with reliable and respectful tenants for over 10 years.
Naturally, when the time came to sell our beloved Carlsbad home to pursue a rural lifestyle in retirement out of California, we could think of no better team to represent us than Jim and Donna. They immediately went to work to update our house built in 2004 to current-day standards and trends — in 2 short months they transformed it into a literal modern-day masterpiece. We trusted their judgement implicitly and followed 100% of their recommended changes. When our house finally came on the market, there was a blizzard of serious interest, we had multiple offers by the third day and it sold in just 5 days after a frenzied bidding war for 20% above our asking price! The investment we made in upgrades recommended by Jim and Donna yielded a 4-fold return, in the process setting a new high water mark for a house sold in our community.
In our view, there are no better real estate professionals in all of San Diego than Jim and Donna Klinge. Buying or selling, you must run and beg Jim and Donna Klinge to represent you! Our family will never forget Jim, Donna, and their whole team at Compass — we are forever grateful to them.
If you list and don’t get the price you want, you can just take it off the market.
If you go to auction and don’t get the price you want, then what?
If you go to auction and don’t get the price you want, then what?
We need a real estate revolution.
It would be nice if the realtors started it so we can help direct the outcome. But we won’t because the current system pays pretty good when it pays and we don’t want to disrupt that.
We need to work the auction format into the mix (being done now by Harcourts and Concierge) and let sellers see that it is the most effective method to sell your home for top dollar on a specific day. The sellers who are willing to sell for what the market will bear can benefit from the certainty in timing and hope the auction excitement causes buyers to bid it up higher than it would have gone otherwise.
The other part of the revolution is how we get paid. Concierge getting paid 10% when the seller is taking all the risk seems outrageous, but so does spending $40,000 on a video that will – at best – have an indirect impact on selling that home. It’s like staging – there’s no guarantee it will sell the house. What is worse is that the agents take all the risk, have NO SAY in the selling decision, and can wind up getting paid nothing.
What other business does that?
For those sellers who want to list at a lofty high price because there house was built with heavy-duty nails – fine, that option is still available. But realtors should insist on a different pay package, and at least get paid something if it doesn’t sell.
Taking all the risk and having no say in the outcome is the worst part.
The house in the video is listed for $32,850,000 – can you imagine the seller getting an offer for $25 million and turning it down? The agents will have spent the $40,000 for the video plus other marketing costs and devoted their time for months just to end up with nothing.
P.S. The seller paid $4,450,000 for that house in 2008.
Thanks for the kind words.
BTW, I think the house three down is about to be listed. How do I know? The drone was hovering taking pictures. Used to be you paid hundreds of dollars for a flyby and hundreds more for the picture. Now those same hundreds get you a drone and the pics and every one after is free.