It will definitely end up attracting more clicks than dollars and a Nova Scotia realtor is trying to understand how her three-day-old listing has gone viral, attracting potential buyers from as far away as Toronto and Vancouver.
“I swear I don’t know why everybody is looking at it. It’s just one of those things,” says Wanda Graves, a realtor with Eastern Valley Real Estate Ltd., about the 7,000 square foot home listed at $434,900 that has attracted 800,000 views and counting. “We just keep sweeping through all the inquiries.”
Normally, her firm’s website might attract 1,000 views over three months but 98 Avondale Rd. — close to 50 minutes by car from the metropolitan Halifax region — is capturing the imagination of Canadians from coast to coast and even as far away as Ireland. She has buyers flying in from Toronto and British Columbia for a showing in the next few days.
So what are you getting for your money? For starters, a lot more than 500 square feet in the wrong part of town in Vancouver or Toronto. Built in 1910, the home looks like something out of the British drama Downton Abbey.
You get a three-storey home on 3.17 acres of land overlooking the Avon River situated on what is known as Newport Landing. In your 7,000 square feet home, you’ll have seven bedrooms, 2.5 bathes, a library, a sunroom, a large eat-in kitchen, a formal dining room, double parlours and original wood throughout the home.
“Property is being sold as is, where is,” the listing warns.
Graves, who has been in the industry 12 years, said she only advertised on the company’s website but it started sharing on Facebook and then all of a sudden it just took off. It might get busy this weekend.
“I think people are just surprised by the size of the home and price being under $500,000,” she says, adding one of the questions she keeps getting asked for some strange reason is whether the home is haunted. “I think people think it’s old.”
Asked whether the home is priced low to try to attract interest, Graves just laughs. “We don’t do that here,” she says. “When will I be taking offers? We’re not that busy here. You can just buy it, if you make an offer.”
Dan Morrison, the president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, said some of the interest from his region in a property might just be buyer fatigue that set in about a year ago. “People are just tired of making offers and getting nowhere,” he says, about the market where the average price for all residential properties was $896,000 in January after a 3.7 per cent decline over the past six months.
He’s doubtful that people will actually follow through and buy a house like the Nova Scotia manor, even though he has seen people leave the Vancouver area and move to Vancouver Island. “The joke is we call those people salmon, they always end up coming back (to Vancouver),” said Morrison, acknowledging $430,000 will really only get you about 700 square feet in an older condominium in his city.
Brand Henderson, chief executive of Sotheby’s International Realty Canada, agrees there is a certain amount of fantasy to real estate these days. “We call our website eye candy,” he said, adding the attraction of the Nova Scotia listing just might be it’s within everybody’s affordability range. “People just ask themselves if they are missing something. At that price in Toronto, you’re looking at a second or third tier location in a a semi-detached home or townhouse.”
Graves doesn’t worry about those Toronto and Vancouver comparisons. “I am a little jealous of those realtors though,” she says, with a laugh.
Financial Post
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2kUec01
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