SUNNYVALE (KPIX) — We’re used to the hot Bay Area real estate market leaving us sticker shocked, but recently a Sunnyvale home’s selling price even caught the listing agent off guard.
“By far the craziest that I’ve ever experienced,” said Rise Homes realtor Joe Polyak.
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The single-family home on Flin Way, which is 1,300 square feet with three bedrooms and two baths, just sold for $823,000 over its original listing price.
Polyak said the home next door recently sold for $2.6 million, and he valued his client’s home at around $2 million.
He was stunned when it sold for $2.68 million dollars.
“I couldn’t ever have imagined that,” Polyak said. “It’s insane.”
He said he received 35 offers on the day he opened it up to bids.
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Gary Shapiro, the lead agent for the Shapiro Group at Keller Williams in Los Gatos, said the cause for skyrocketing Bay Area home prices right now is high demand and low inventory. He believes the strong sellers market will continue into 2022. Shapiro thinks inventory will improve slightly, but it still won’t keep pace with the demand.
“We’re at a point where inventory is at an all-time low that I’ve ever seen and this is my 37th year of full-time real estate in Santa Clara County,” Shapiro said.
He also said Polyak used a common strategy to spark the bidding war frenzy over the Sunnyvale home.
“When we’re in a sellers’ market most agents will recommend asking a low conservative price knowing that the amount of demand will create multiple offers and cause the buyers to bid the price up,” said Shapiro. “I think the agent and seller should be extremely happy with the final sale price for such a small house, absolutely.”
“That is what we did, and that is what we always do is list it a little bit lower,” Polyak said.
He listed the home at $1.83 million knowing it would cause a bidding war, but he never imagined just how high buyers would go.
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“We were not expecting that and neither were the sellers, to a good surprise, obviously,” said Polyak.
