Yesterday, I whipped into the City of Carlsbad maintenance yard where they have all the realtor open-house signs locked up. They have been diligent in their enforcement efforts!
When the city first threatened to do something, we realtors didn’t take it seriously and failed to get out in front of it.
As a result, the city imposed a rule that requires our open house signs to be inside of the right-of-way, which is tough around Olde Carlsbad where there are no sidewalks and in many cases, no place to put signs that are ten feet from the street.
Not only are they collecting the signs every weekend now, but their driver has an attitude too, especially when he is on patrol with his girlfriend – which has to be against city policy for her to be riding along.
I asked about political signs.
They explained that those have a ‘special’ permit so they can be put anywhere. Politicians give themselves special treatment!
This is what happens when you have a bunch of independent contractors and no governing body or leader. When the city threatened to do something, realtors didn’t take it seriously and provided no alternatives, so the city stuck it to us.
In most places around town, you can’t see a sign that’s ten feet from the curb.
A week ago these sellers had no expectation of moving any time soon, and certainly hadn’t done anything to prepare for sale. But we found the right house to buy, if we can only sell this one.
Let’s get on it!
Tuesday and Wednesday the ceilings were scraped, re-textured, and painted. Thursday and Friday the walls and kitchen were painted (two coats) and the bathrooms were tuned up. The painters stayed until 11pm last night, and came back early today to finsih it off.
Buyers started arriving at 11:45!
Here’s the play by play:
We already received one full-price offer, and others are interested. Richard will be there 12-3pm on Sunday!
There may be reasons for a market slowdown, but there is a fascination about real estate that keeps people engaged. We had 200+ people attend the open houses this weekend – wow! We haven’t received offers yet, but if those 200 people tell another 200 people…..market buzz!
Redfin bumped their estimate twice, to over list price now!
