Clever brokers say this Saturday afternoon will be a great time to buy a house in Seattle
January 13, 2017
Marc Stiles, Puget Sound Business Journal
Saturday at 1:35 p.m. will be an opportune time to make an offer on a home pretty much anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, but especially in the greater Seattle area.
That’s when many other competing buyers will be glued to the TV for the kickoff of the Seahawks’ playoff game against the Atlanta Falcons.
To get an idea of how many people won’t be thinking about buying a house, consider last Saturday, when nearly 47 percent of the households in the Seattle region were tuned to Seattle’s game against the Detroit Lions, according to Sports TV Ratings.
This “Seahawks Strategy” emerged a little over a year ago when the number of condos and houses on the market was falling precipitously, and now the inventory is even lower with bidding wars the norm in some submarkets.
Jeffrey J. Reynolds, a broker with Windermere East in Kirkland, said anything a buyer can do to get an edge is paramount in this market, where putting a home under contract in less than two hours is not uncommon.
He outlined how he would use the razzle-dazzle “Seahawks game distraction” play. Show your clients a house a day or so before the game. If they love it, Reynolds would tell the seller that his clients are looking at buying a different property so need an answer ASAP.
“If the offer was thoughtfully submitted and the seller was on the lookout for it, you could find that you are under contract by halftime,” he said.
“Even if my buyers are Seahawks fans, their need for a home takes precedent,” said Laura Horetski, a broker with the John L. Scott Bellevue-Issaquah office.
She successfully used the Seahawks Strategy last season, when she and a client looked at a few homes in the morning before a game. They found a house the client loved and made a game-time offer. It worked.
“The clincher was that they had to give us an answer within 24 hours. That’s how we successfully avoided a multi-offer situation,” Horetski said.
