Sold In Varsity, NW Calgary
#401, 3717 42 Street NW
A one bedroom investment condo, 662 square feet, listed into 2020. It did not sell the first time. We took it off the market, relisted it, and it went firm in twenty days. The gorgeous part came later, two years later, from the sign out front.
The Part We’ll Say Out Loud
It Did Not Sell The First Time.
We listed this condo, it did not find its buyer, and it came off the market. Then we relisted it and it went firm in twenty days. Both of those listings are on the record, and anyone in the business can look them up, so there is no version of this page that quietly reports the twenty and leaves the rest out.
It was also 2020, which was a hard year to sell anything. Nobody was touring condos casually. A one bedroom investment property at 662 square feet has a narrow buyer pool at the best of times, and that year the pool was narrower still.
A relisting is not a trick. It is an admission that the first attempt did not work, followed by changing something before you try again.
Our client was an investor with a number in mind and the patience to wait for it. The house did not have to sell that month. It had to sell at the level that made holding it worthwhile, and it did.
Selling A Small Condo
The Smaller The Unit, The Harder The Marketing Has To Work.
The instinct with a small investment condo is to spend nothing on it. Take a few photos on a phone, put it up, wait. It is a low value listing, the thinking goes, so why would you do more.
That thinking is exactly backwards. A 662 square foot condo is the hardest thing to photograph and the easiest thing to scroll past. It has no feature that carries an ad on its own. Buyers cannot tell from a gallery whether the space works, and if they cannot tell, they do not book.
So this one got the same treatment a house gets, including a full video tour, in a year when most agents had stopped filming altogether. That decision is the reason this page exists, and it is not because of the sale.
The Film
The Tour We Made In 2020.
Still up, still exactly what buyers saw. Six hundred and sixty two square feet is a difficult thing to convey in stills, and this is why we film them.
Two Years Later
Somebody Photographed The Sign.
While this listing was live, someone walked past, looked at how it was being marketed, and took a photograph of our lawn sign. They were not selling. They lived in another province. They had no reason to call.
Two years later, when it came time to sell their father’s investment property a few doors along the same street, they still had the photo. They called.
That listing became #203, 3727 42 Street NW, and it sold in 2022.
This is the honest argument for marketing a small condo properly. Not that it sells faster. That somebody who was not even your client is watching how you treat it.
The Home
What Buyers Walked Into.
- 662 sq ft RMS, one bedroom, one bathroom, in Varsity, northwest Calgary
- Held as an investment property, sold to a number the owner set before we listed
- Marketed with a full video tour, in a year when most small condos got photographs and nothing else
- Minutes to Market Mall, the University of Calgary, Foothills Hospital and the Alberta Children’s Hospital
- Established northwest Calgary, with Crowchild Trail and the Dalhousie CTrain close by
Varsity Calgary Real Estate
Varsity Is Not Only Houses.
Varsity carries three subdivisions and a full range of housing, from 1960s bungalows and infills through to townhomes and apartment condominiums. The condo side of the community is where students, hospital staff, downsizers and investors all overlap, because the location does work that the square footage cannot.
If you own a unit here and you are weighing up whether to sell or keep renting it, the honest answer depends on your building rather than on the community, and we will tell you which of those two conversations you are actually having.
Own A Rental You Are Thinking Of Selling?
Tenants, timing, condo documents and what the building is actually doing. We will give you the real picture, including the times when holding it another year is the better answer.
Tara Molina Real Estate Group · Royal LePage Benchmark · 403.809.4639