We list more than our share of pricey homes, that’s a fact. I sometimes list all over the Valley for my investor clients, but Cathleen Collins has made a specialty — and an artform — out of listing remarkable homes: Historic, architecturally-distinctive and mid-century modern luxury homes. We’re often found in that half-million-and-up price range — and that’s a comfortable place for us to exercise the kind of marketing tools we like to deploy when we list a home for sale.

So what does it mean when we list a double-wide mobile-home in last rustic neighborhood in Glendale? The newspapers are full of starving Realtor stories. Are we so desperate for work that we’re listing for ten cents on our usual dollar?

Not quite. The listing itself is family — Cathleen’s sister’s husband’s mother. But we know we can do a better job on a home like this than the average mobile-home lister. There are things we would normally do that just don’t make sense for a home at this price. But building a web site for the home makes perfect sense to us.

The home is what it is, and we can’t puff it to be something else. The structure needs help, and our listing copy acknowledges this fact. But the land and the surrounding area are incomparable, some of the last bits of desert available this close to town. And these are the kinds of ideas we can bring out in the web site and on the home’s color flyers.

In some ways our listing this home is kind of funny. For example, the house is in rough-enough shape that we took no photos at all of the interior of the home, where normally we would take hundreds. But this house was a sweet lady’s dream home, and it is her financial nest egg even now. If we can help her get the most money she can for her home — that’s our job, a job we love to do regardless of the house we’re working with or its sales price.

But take careful note: The purpose of real estate marketing is to sell real estate. If you’re interested in picking up a quarter-acre of raw desert at a bargain price, take a look at the web site for 3527 West Quail Avenue in Glendale, AZ — and then give me a call. This property is primed for its next chapter, and you could be its author.

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