Burlington home sells for $420,000 over asking price
Bidding hundreds of thousands of dollars - the cost of a condo or small house - over the asking price is a sign of the lengths some buyers will go to in securing the keys to a new, larger home.
For buyers in Burlington's Orchard neighbourhood, that meant paying $420,000 over and above the $1.69 million list price - or a whopping $2.1 million.
The detached, four-bedroom home on Whitehorn Drive, with a fifth bedroom in the walkout basement, backs onto Bronte Creek Provincial Park and was purchased by people who already live in the neighbourhood, just a few streets down, said Mark Primerano, the listing agent from Century 21 Today Realty.
Primerano, who has more than three decades of experience selling homes in the Golden Horseshoe area, said the pandemic has prompted him to change his approach, giving sellers a longer closing clause to account for the greater effort required to find a new home in today's market.
He also said the lower listing prices that stoke bidding wars have become more common. The controversial pricing tactic to increase offers has drawn the ire of some prospective buyers, but Primerano says sellers also have a hand in this decision in an aggressive market.
The public's getting a bad impression of us and it's not us. We're just working [for] the seller to get them the highest price, which is our job," he said. But at the end of the day, the buyer is going to get the house they want at what [the] market dictates."
This latest, staggering purchase is part of a trend in the region. Over the winter, a Waterdown couple sold their home - which they converted into a legal duplex - for $225,000 over its $599,000 listing price.
And another couple, who had bid on 21 homes by March, threw their hats in the ring on a three-bedroom Binbrook home that ended up selling for $1.1 million - $300,000 over asking.
Hamilton's housing market was recently identified by the Bank of Canada as showing exuberant" prices, driven primarily by buyers.
Vjosa Isai is a reporter at The Spectator covering Hamilton-based business. Reach her via email: visai@thespec.com.