Yodeling Naked & Firesales

Rod & I sold a piece of property yesterday and I’d like to tell y’all about it. Be ye buyer or seller I think that it will be informative and hopefully helpful.

The couple came to us from a Canadian referral, primarily to view the San Buenas Golf Resort. I’ll call them the Schmerds.

After viewing the course and deciding that it was for them – they’ll likely get a clubhouse condo for investment and income generation. All this plus the fact that they like to golf made that a no brainer. They asked if they could see some general market properties as well.

We started in Uvita with some lovely whales tail view properties. Bella Vista Lot #6 has occupied “The Best Deal in Uvita” slot for some time, but was recently nudged into second place by a fire sale opportunity that we had just received.

The Schmerds LOVED #6, with its beautiful ocean and jungle views and absolute privacy. A little over 2 acres and end of the road quiet.

From there we went to Bella Vista #5 which is a re-sale and was formerly “Ben’s Favorite Uvita Property” but it too has been relegated to the #2 position by another property that I’ll describe here in a minute. I rank this particular category by purely subjective criteria and pay no heed to price, just how much I like the property. I will however, only compare a single family lot with another single family lot, commercial with commercial and so on.

Bella Vista #5 has been my favorite for a long time because of its mix of bomb ocean and whale’s tail views, mixed with a 270 degree view back around to the jungle and a mist enshrouded mountain range. The property sits on a finger of land that runs parallel to the ocean. Aside from having room for a main house and pool, there is also a separate building pad for a guest house. The seller on this has recently lowered his price from $230,000 to $175,000 and is eager to sell. The Schmerds loved this one as well.

I should probably mention a little bit about our in-house scale of measuring privacy. The assignation of “Yodel Naked” is earned by properties that would allow one to let fly with a good yodel, buck naked while standing on the deck, without concern of the activity being observed by neighbors or passersby, despite the noise it generates.

The Schmerds were looking for Yodel Naked privacy, and their upper limit budget was $200,000 for a raw piece of land.

From Bella Vista we went up to the Whale’s Tail Estates properties. La Gordita, which is a great buy at $195,000. It has amazing views and two large building sites, but if you were to yodel, you’d likely want to have a speedo, fig leaf, or some equivalent.

All of the properties in Whale’s Tail Estates are above the $200,000 figure that was the upper limit for the Schmerds with the one exception of La Gordita.

One virtue of the lots in Whale’s Tail Estates is that they all have access, via a network of trails to a year round river where there are pools and waterfalls. The Schmerds were very interested in seeing the river, so we went to it, passing through my now “Ben’s #1 Favorite Property in Uvita Costa Rica” – “El Rio”. Priced at $300,000 this one is THE pick, as far as I’m concerned. Screaming ocean view, two really large building sites, yodel naked privacy, and the ever present sound of the nearby river. With the jungle all around, one has the feeling of being in their own private retreat.

From there we dropped down out of the mountains and went to the next ridge over to look at the property that occupied the “Best Deal in Uvita Costa Rica real estate” ranking. 4.1 acres, a well built studio guest house, two building pads, and one very screaming whale’s tail and ocean view. Price: $199,000. They bought this one.

And this brings us to the meat & potatoes of this article. Firesales. This property was Firesale value.

We called the property Paraiso Uvita on our website and we had the property at $325,000. When the economy tanked, we received a call from the seller to lower the price to $295,000, which we did. A couple months later he called and asked what he would need to do to sell the property NOW.

We discussed the age-old marketing psychology of starting the asking price number with a “1” instead of a “2”. The problem was that he was at the top of the 2s and so to effect the change to a 1, he’d have to lower his already reduced price by another $100,000. My input to him was to lower the price by $20,000 or $30,000 and let’s see what happens, to which he said, “move it to $199,000”. This property now qualified for Firesale status.

This scenario got me to thinking. Rod and I are under an absolute siege from sellers right now. Our inventory is about as good as I’ve ever seen in my time in Costa Rica real estate. We are asked the question on a daily basis: “what do I have to do to sell in the present market”? I think that I now know the answer.

Paraiso Uvita is a great property, and it has a value in the old market of $325,000. The price of $295,000 put it in a reasonable range for the current market. But to sell the property required a slashing of the price. We sold it to the first showing.

If you are determined to sell your property here in Costa Rica, glean what you can from this experience. Our business is slow here, but it is not dead. We don’t have a lot of people to show property to, but we are still showing property. If they get to see some great properties, and one of them has this sort of Firesale pricing, its going to take the deal.

Unrelated to any of the forgoing, Rod and I had met with the seller of Uvita’s Bella Vista properties as well as the Whale’s Tail Estates properties last week. Without knowing about the above scenario, he just wrote me a letter asking what it would take to put Bella Vista #6 and Whale’s Tail Estates “La Gordita” into the Firesale category. Interesting. I’ll let you know how that turns out.