Coldwell Banker First Ottawa Realty
5 Oriole Dr., Ottawa
Asking price: $1.58-million (March 2020)
Previous asking price: $1.559-million
Selling price: $1,562,500
Previous selling price: $1,525,000 (2011)
Taxes: $12,000 (2019)
Days on the market: 46
Listing agent: Raymond Chin, Coldwell Banker First Ottawa Realty
The action
The house was staged with bright accessories to accentuate its art deco feel.Coldwell Banker First Ottawa Realty
In the upscale Rothwell Heights neighbourhood near the Ottawa River, properties often take months to sell. This custom-built house on a 140-foot-by-140-foot lot sat on the market for more than a year under a previous agent. Coldwell Banker’s Raymond Chin staged the home with bright accessories and art in the main entertaining areas to accentuate its art deco feel.
“In Ottawa, $750,000 and above is considered luxury [real estate] … so this is a very unique property,” Mr. Chin said.
The main floor has a family room with a second fireplace.Coldwell Banker First Ottawa Realty
Still, the unusual arrangement of the house – with two bedrooms on the main floor and the principle rooms and two more bedrooms on the second – posed a challenge.
“When I took it over, we listed it around the same price, but we had to tweak the marketing because it was an upside down house, and we had to stage it a certain way.”
The 15-year-old house has more than 5,000 square feet of living space.Coldwell Banker First Ottawa Realty
House tours were cancelled after a week of exposure in March, but the details were all still available online and seen by one agent whose client negotiated a $1,562,500 deal in late May.
“We had everything stacked against us,” Mr. Chin said. “But keeping the pictures and video tour alive, agents were able to grab that and show it to their buyers and encourage them that it was a good opportunity amidst COVID because they were not competing against other people.”
What they got
The second floor centres around a kitchen with 10-foot ceilings.Coldwell Banker First Ottawa Realty
This 15-year-old house has more than 5,000 square feet of living space and an attached double garage. The second floor centres around a kitchen with 10-foot ceilings and glass doors to the living and dining rooms, a den and three-season porch.
The main floor accommodates two of the four bedrooms, a kitchenette and a family room with a second fireplace.
The agent’s take
Coldwell Banker First Ottawa Realty
“In that area, frontages are about 80 [feet] to 120 feet,” Mr. Chin said.
“Square footage wise, within the area, the home … is definitely not the biggest, but on average, it’s a little bigger than what we’d normally find.”
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