In Real Estate jargon the term ‘farming’ describes the process of actively seeking, contacting and cultivating potential home sellers via door-knocking, phone-calling and by mail. Does it work in Chico? Absolutely! Here’s how a chance meeting at an open house turned into a successful search for a California Park lakefront home.
About 3 months ago while holding an open house at the Sierra Lakeside condominium complex a friendly gentleman wandered into the home for a quick look around “let me know if you ever get one of these right on the lake” he said offhandedly as he started to leave. “Do you mean it?” I replied, immediately thinking of how I might locate a seller willing to part with their home on the water. “Definitely” he replied.
The following day I composed a postcard with a colorful photo of the lake and a description of what I was looking for, and mailed it out to about 40 owners of lakefront condos in both Sierra Lakeside and Windmill Falls. After a week with no response I moved on to more pressing projects.
The following weekend while hosting another open house in a different location I had a call from Mary. Mary had fixed up a lake-view condo for herself but a job change prevented her from occupying it, so she had been renting it out for the last 4 years. She hadn’t been thinking about selling but since she’d gotten my letter she’d at least “find out what it’s worth”. As it turned out it was worth slightly more than she had thought, and she encouraged me to run it by the gentleman that had inspired my search.
When Steve saw the view of the lake he was hooked, and offered to pay Mary’s asking price. Within 3 weeks of Mary accepting Steve’s offer we had Steve’s home for sale and a month later it too had attracted a buyer. Both sales will conclude the end of June, just in time for the buyers to receive the Federal Home Buyers tax credit.
Farming works! All you need is an agent willing to put in the extra effort to search for the specific home-type you’re seeking.
Just like most crops, all this farming effort needed for success was a little water…front
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