Whoops--that house was listed too low!

With the slow market, I've had calls from people looking for really good buys. Then a few weeks ago, I saw a listing pop up that was about 100k underpriced. It was a bank repo but only a few years old and in an excellent location near downtown. I immediately called the listing agent and got his assistant, who confirmed that the price was correct.

I was extremely puzzled by the low price--I've been seeing prices come down, particularly in 92508, where they overbuilt, but nothing like this in this particular development just southwest of the 91/215/60 interchange.

I immediately started emailing and calling clients to let them know about the house, and I ran a search on the property's sale history. It turned that the 2 previous owners had been real estate agents, and the last sale had been at over 400k. The house was now listed at about 265k. I jumped in the car and headed over to see the place. The carpet in the living room needed replacing, and some of the heavy wood blinds had been taken down in places, but it was still in quite new condition otherwise.

A client of mine was getting ready to make an offer sight unseen when the house suddenly went pending. I was kicking myself for not having pushed her to act sooner when, almost as quickly, the house reappeared on the MLS, having fallen out of escrow. Only now, it was listed for about 365k. Whoops--guess that first list price was a mistake after all!