It sounds like advertisement but it really happened thanks to the participation of our group in the selling of a beautiful villa in Tuscany
The property has being established for sale during several months by Knigt Frank for the initial price of 3,8 million Euro, and then the requested price was reduced to 2,9 million Euro.
When I personally talked to the clients, the asking price had been already reduced to 2.9 million Euro; but after a careful evaluation of the property and comparing with assessment done by the most experienced broker of the group I told the clients our final evaluation – 2,55 million Euro.
I did not know what their answer would be but I was sure I gave these clients the best advice: when somebody decides to sell such a prestigious and important property at reasonable price, the only task is to find the right client who would be able to love the property as its previous owners did all the years before.
My fears dispelled by absolutely intelligent and positive answer of the clients who agreed with our assessment supported by objective data of trades carried out by our group and by results that were not achieved during two previous years. After this, we could sign the free mandate for the price of 2,55 million Euro (hence our evaluation), considering this price as not negotiable except the possibility of including the interior furniture.
Then we proceeded to advertising of the property with all available tools of communication (our website, international portals and other possible ways offering by our marketing group).
In March 2015, the sellers, having noticed the responsibility and potential of our group, approved an implementation of the specific marketing plan with their contribution of about 1,500 Euro which in the future will help to achieve a successful result.
The feedback was immediate, in a few weeks the property became the object of ten specific requests, not only from the clients already present in our database but also from new comers.
In July, there were the first five viewings of four international clients and one Italian. All of them found the villa gorgeous.
On July 20th, one of the clients made a written offer of 1,8 million Euro but we were not able to advise the sellers to take it seriously because we were certain that the assessment at 2,55 million Euro was the right one. The sellers would never accept the offer like that since they were completely agreed with our assessment.
After a short period of time, two of our international clients have increased the awareness of their choice and expressed a strong interest in the villa. We posted them a purchase proposal in Italian-English format of 14 pages: we consider the time of the proposal is the most important moment of the whole process because we do not want any surprises either for us or for the parties concerned, so our proposals actually represent a preliminary deed.
In this way, on August 4th, we received a proposal of 2.55 million Euro including furniture and 50,000 euro of bank suffrage of this proposal from one of two interested clients.
The same day we met the sellers that we constantly have been keeping informed about the progress of our work. Our meeting was very exciting: from one hand, there was satisfaction from great result achieved in a short period of time, but from the other hand, there was light upset because the sale was in a process.
However, the kindness and shrewdness of the buyers shown from the very beginning mitigated this little moment of emotional difficulty because the current owners quickly realized that the magic and splendor of the villa would not be lost but instead, the buyers would be dedicated to taking care about it.
Thanks to the work that had been done and to the attention of the buyers, the current owners accepted the proposal the same day, on August 14th.
After this, we carried out the notification of the buying proposal contacting with the clients and their respectful lawyers and receiving the complements for our professionalism and completed work.
On October 16th, thirty days after the execution of preemptive agricultural law, in the presence of the lawyer and notary we signed the purchase agreement directly at the main office of Great Estate that contributed to the positive close of the deal.
Signing of the agreement at our central office provided our clients with private and comfortable environment rewarding the fact of hard work managed by our international professionals that did a great preparation for the sale related to the knowledge of various issues such us urban planning, taxation, laws and psychological factor required for such serious negotiation.
The only thing to say is that I am very glad and proud of signing of such important preliminary agreement in a relatively short time. Everything depends only on one thing, a really strong point of Great Estate – the application of our method with correctness and seriousness.
We would have never managed to sell this property if:
a) We had been continuing to evaluate the property at overvalued, out-of-market price.
b) Had not had recognized international visibility and had not implemented the international marketing plan approved by the sellers.
c) Had not obligated the sellers to do one, two diligence of the property that indicated some small solvable problems that could have become insurmountable obstacles without proper knowledge on the phase of negotiation.
d) Had not had decade’s years of experience in a sphere of handling negotiations where the smallest mistake by reason of superficiality can be indicted as failure.
To conclude, if you want to sell a luxury property, you should have all of these four elements:
1) Price in line with the market,
2) Wide national and international visibility,
3) Perfect knowledge of the legal and technical features of the property,
4) The experience of real estate group going on to bring great results.
Even if one of these four points is absent, a great result reached by a company can become a bitter defeat.
CEO
Stefano Petri
