During Orlando’s real-estate crash, Jim Benson couldn’t sell his historic downtown house even after throwing in a classic Rolls-Royce.
The two-story, columned house on Broadway Avenue in Eola Heights lingered on the market for more than five years. The listing even outlasted its owner, who died in 2011.
Last week, the home finally sold for about half its original asking price — and without the Rolls.
“Once the house had been on the market for so long, people began wondering what was wrong with it, even though there was nothing wrong, and it was structurally strong,” said Benson’s son, Tom, who took over the task of selling the house after his father died of heart problems at age 85.
Jim Benson first listed the house for $880,000 in March 2008, about six months into a years-long real-estate downturn. After 18 months with no serious offers, he dropped the price to $699,000 and tried to sweeten the deal by throwing in his 1967 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, then worth about $50,000.
But not even the bonus of a Rolls in mint condition could move the pre-Depression home caught in the Great Recession. While the house was listed for sale, the median home price in the core Orlando market dropped from $220,000 to $155,000.
Tom Benson, who lives in Kissimmee, found that the Rolls failed to attract any legitimate buyers, so he sold the car to a family friend. Then he re-listed his late father’s house at a lower price with a new broker.
Two years ago, Linda Sitek and Steve Ritz became at least the third Orlando real-estate team to try to move the 3,373-square-foot home with long-hewn plank floors and wooden beams worthy of a fortress.
By any stretch, five years is a long time for a house to be on the market. Even at the depths of the housing-market downturn, Orlando-area houses landed a contract in an average of 31/2 months. Today that time has been shaved to about two months.
“When we took the listing, we knew it had a huge history on the MLS [multiple listing service],” Sitek said this week.
The Keller Williams agents priced it at $479,000, which was close to its previous list price. The new agents gave it a fresh marketing push, with 25 new photos taken on a sunny day, and then invited real-estate agents there for a Great Gatsby party with themed music, raffles of Gatsby movie tickets, wine and a few feather boas scattered about.
The party couldn’t measure up to the giveaway of a Rolls-Royce, which sells new for as much as a quarter-million dollars. But it did generate some interest in a long-tired listing. Sitek said the bottom line was that few buyers were in the market when 538 Broadway Ave. got its first “For Sale” sign.
When the house was first marketed in March 2008, the monthly sales pace was about half what it is now, according to the Orlando Regional Realtors Association. The month it hit the market, just five Orlando-area houses sold in the $800,000 price range, compared with 98 last month.
In the years the house was listed, it attracted plenty of lowball offers but only one contract. Orlando resident Judy Hoepker bought it last week for $460,000.
“It is a fortress, and it wants to be an $800,000-plus house,” Hoepker said Tuesday.
Potential buyers may have had trouble envisioning how to configure furniture in the large, open rooms at the front of the house, which was built in 1926. And many buyers, she added, are scared off by historic homes — they want a new house that looks old.
The fact that the windows were painted shut, for instance, probably didn’t help. Hoepker said she plans to move in January but has hired a Sanford company to restore the windows.
Benson said his father would have approved of the buyer because she wants to restore the house instead of bulldozing it or revamping it.
In retrospect, Benson said, he probably would not have done anything differently.
“I always thought that Dad would turn over in his grave if I settled for something that he didn’t feel was worthy of the house,” he said.
mshanklin@tribune.com or 407-420-5538