One of Ms. Braver’s clients, Phil Gennaway, bought a brownstone in Carroll Gardens in 1974 for $50,000. For four decades, the three-story multifamily home has done its duty — serving for a time as a home for Mr. Gennaway and his wife and later as a dependable source of rental income when the couple moved out of the city.
But after incurring some unexpected medical expenses last year, Mr. Gennaway decided that it was time to cash out. He was advised to wait until spring, and on April 30 he listed the building for $1.6 million.
Mr. Gennaway, who has spent many years appraising property values in the city, was surprised by what happened next.
After three group showings and less than one week on the market, he received nine bids — at which point his broker stopped taking offers.
The building is in contract for an amount higher than the asking price. Mr. Gennaway would not reveal the sales price before the deal closed.
I boiled this down to: “One of my clients got more than he was asking for a building in Brooklyn”. That is the only datapoint you need to make a decision, right? Like, think of an offering price above ask, then whatever you were going to offer, think of a higher offer, then offer higher than your higher offer, and that’s how you walk away with a brownstone as if it were a pack of gum at the bodega. This is a technique I would not have necessarily come up with myself! But it is sort of brilliant, if you have eight figures in pocket cash, that is. Save some money for the Viking range!
