Name: Dan Groover
The home: A three-bedroom, three-bath home built in 1960
Where: Sandy Springs
Why he sold: Groover grew up in the home, which his parents bought in 1963. "That's the home we knew all our lives," said Groover, who works for KPMG. His mother died in 2006, and the family decided to sell the inside-the-Perimeter home after his father, now 89, moved to an assisted living facility. Other homes on the street had been sold to builders. Groover expected his family's home would have the same fate, bought by a builder and torn down. "They were buying the property," he said.
Time on market: 0 days
Original price: $475,000
Sale price: $465,000
What it took
Jimmy Baron with Keller Williams Realty First Atlanta had sold the home next door and put a flier in the Groover family’s mailbox as an introduction. It showed that Baron knew what was happening in the neighborhood and had been successful in selling other older houses on the street.
Groover’s family didn’t decide to sell the home, on three-quarters of an acre, until a year after meeting Baron. The $475,000 asking price for the home was the highest in the neighborhood, Groover said. There was no mortgage on the property, which gave them the ability to wait for a buyer and continue trying to clean out the home.
“We were very willing to just walk away if we didn’t get close to what we were looking for,” Groover said. “There was no rush.”
Potential stumbling block
The sale was unique because it was not posted in the FMLS (First Multiple Listing Service), a database that contains listings in Atlanta and across the Southeast and helps agents reach a bigger audience when selling homes.
Instead, Baron reached out to about 10 builders in his network and talked to other real estate agents with clients who were builders seeking to buy property in the area. It took about two to three weeks to strike a deal with the buyer after the family decided to sell the home.
Seller’s hint
The most difficult part of the process was trying to clear the home of items the family wanted to keep and needed to donate or throw away. His father was unable to keep up with the house, which still had Groover’s mother’s clothes and items sitting on the dresser. In the attic, they found old cribs, college textbooks belonging to his father, clothes and old papers.
They spent nights and weekends trying to clean out the home, with trips to Goodwill and storage units, where they put big items, such as furniture.
Still, tools and lawn equipment remained in the basement as they approached closing. At closing, Groover told the buyer about the situation. The buyer said he would leave those items.
“You can’t start too early starting to purge stuff,” Groover said. “You think it’s not going to be that big of a deal, but every nook and cranny you turn over, it’s just unbelievable.”
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