Mislisted Multifamily Properties In Washington, DC.

[Russell Brazil]

Not all agents are created equally. In fact in the multifamily space, there are 54 sellers who will lose between $2,943,683 and $6,868,595 cumulatively because of incompetence. And guess what….the sellers and their agents will never know the mistake that cost them this much money.

Let’s dig in.

As we stand right now, there are 115 properties listed in the multifamily section of the MLS in Washington, DC. 54 legal multifamily properties are currently listed as single family properties in the MLS. So 32% of all multifamily properties are currently mislisted as single family properties.

Why does this matter? Well if I am an agent with a multifamily buyer, do you think I am searching in the multifamily section of the MLS, or the single family section? Which section of the MLS am I setting up searches for my multifamily buyers? The multifamily section of course. So with 99% of multifamily buyer searching in the multifamily section of the MLS, they will miss these 54 other properties entirely. These properties never get mailed out to the hordes of buyers looking for these specific properties!

This causes these properties to sit on the market longer, and eventually sell for a lower sales price than they are actually worth. In fact, excluding the new to market properties in this category, the average days on market for them is 121 days. Pretty amazing when the typical appropriately priced multifamily should sell in under 30 days.

We estimate that a property mislisted like this will sell for between 3% and 7% below it’s actually market value. The total value of these mislisted properties is $98,122,779….Nearly $100 MILLION! The average price of these properties is $1,817,088.

So we are looking at each of these sellers losing potentially up to $127,192!

And yes while some discount agents are making this mistake as one might expect…lots of high producing, and luxury agents are making these mistakes too. Why? Because they simply do not have experience in how to properly sell multifamily properties.

On the buy side, this is great news for our buyers, because we have developed a method of identifying these properties. And let me tell you, it isnt exactly easy, but we got you. So if you are a buyer for a multifamily, you should be working with us. We are going to get you huge amounts of built in equity on the buy side if we target these properties.

And if you are a seller…well the question is, why are you not working with the experts in this field? There are only half a dozen agents/teams in DC with substantial experience in the multifamily sector. So please do not be one of these sellers giving away your equity.

The worst part, all these sellers will never have an idea what a disastrous thing happened to them. Most probably even think their agent did a good job, finally getting their “ hard to sell” property sold.

[Cassidy Burns]

1000% correct! This is how I purchased my duplex in DC.  Was listed for $800,000, I got it under contract for $854,000 and it appraised for $970,000!

Great read. Good job Russell 

[Bruce Woodruff]

Man, this is hard to believe! Is it all incompetence or could some of it be a little flim-flam?

[Russell Brazil]

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

Man, this is hard to believe! Is it all incompetence or could some of it be a little flim-flam?

Just straight incompetence. I had a conversation just a few weeks ago with an agent I know that had a property listed as a single family. I told her it was a legal multifamily....she said no its an ADU. I screen capped the tax record that showed there were 2 legal units and the tax use code that showed it was multifamily...and she still insisted it was an ADU.

[Bruce Woodruff]

Quote from @Russell Brazil:

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

Man, this is hard to believe! Is it all incompetence or could some of it be a little flim-flam?

Just straight incompetence. I had a conversation just a few weeks ago with an agent I know that had a property listed as a single family. I told her it was a legal multifamily....she said no its an ADU. I screen capped the tax record that showed there were 2 legal units and the tax use code that showed it was multifamily...and she still insisted it was an ADU.

 Wow. Well ya can't fix stupid....

[Michael Warthen]

Very interesting read, something to pay attention to in my own market. Thank you for sharing!

[Michael Brattelli]

@Russell Brazil I see this a lot as well. Any tips on how to weed them out easier?