Until today, I would not have thought eBay would be a good place to list a house for sale. But after talking with Paul Lussier, I may just change my mind.
Yesterday, after listing my HomeOnTheCourse community guide for sale on eBay, I plugged in the search terms "golf community" to see how my listing was displayed. I was surprised to see it listed among a number of golf course homes for sale, some high into the six figures and a few in some well-known developments. One was a home in Cobblestone Park in Columbia, SC, a high-end Ginn Company community that includes the former University of South Carolina golf course, currently undergoing a redesign by tour player Lee Janzen.
Paul was listed as the owner. I contacted him for more information, curious about his experience trying to sell a home on eBay.
Paul, who lives in New England, had owned two short-term rental properties for a few years in Kissimmee, Fl, which were generating $40,000 a year. He had purchased one via eBay from someone who lived in Argentina. He later listed that one on eBay and sold it within two months to a couple from Minnesota, who themselves never saw the home until the day of closing.
He was happy with the price. So too was the Minnesota couple, who turned around and sold it again - on eBay - a year later. Paul was so impressed with the speed of his first sale that he put the second Kissimmee condo up for sale on eBay, and it too sold within a couple of months. He got his price both times. He says his ads on eBay generated an average of more than 5,000 hits in the course of three months. From that, he received about a dozen serious inquiries and, of course, two ultimate hits.
Of course, this all happened during the boom years of real estate. Paul is now enduring a different kind of market, with a spec house plus a lot in the upscale Cobblestone Park. He and his wife had stayed at a Ginn property in Florida, were bowled over by the developers' attention to lavish details, and thought the Cobblestone property would be a good investment. But in retrospect, Paul thinks that the Columbia market wasn't quite ready for a high-end golfing community with million dollar homes. And of course, there's that mortgage lending mess we have all been reading about. He is getting lots of looks at his eBay listing for his Cobblestone holdings, but no serious inquiries yet. He is wide open to creative arrangements, he says, including a lease with option to buy at $2,200 a month.
The home and lot seem fairly priced for a Ginn Community. The 18- month old house, listed at $539,900 , features over 2,500 square feet on a quarter acre with three bedrooms and 2 ½ baths. Membership in the private University Golf Club, a $20,000 value, will be transferred to the purchaser of the house. Dues are about $500 per month.
The lot Paul is selling sits on a rise and has a nice view of the adjacent par 5 (Paul includes photos of the views at the bottom of his listing for the house). In a community that will have a number of million dollar homes, its $339,900 price tag seems especially reasonable.
Paul has a few tips for those who might consider selling their homes on eBay. Figure out your market first; in the case of his Florida condos, he targeted investors because of the great short-term rental income he generated from families staying at nearby Disney World ("A lot cheaper and better than staying in a hotel for a week," he says.) For the South Carolina properties, he has targeted baby boomers moving south to buy their "dream home." Include lots of photos, he adds; after all, people are visiting the property online and won't hazard a real visit unless they have a clear picture, literally, of what they might be buying.
The strength of eBay is its exposure to foreign markets, and based on hits to Paul's listings, the British are coming. Paul says half his inquiries for his Florida and South Carolina properties are from the United Kingdom. (Note: On average, more than 25% of the visits to this web site are from folks with a web address in the UK.)
"The couple from Minnesota who bought my Florida condo turned around and sold it to people from Great Britain," says Paul. "They love Florida."
And they must love the currency exchange right now, not to mention the slowdown in the U.S. real estate market that provides them with even greater bargains in the States.
On his listing for the golf course lot , Paul leaves the door open for a "best offer." After all, isn't that what eBay is all about? We wish him well.
