“’It’s no good, it’s
no good!’ says the buyer- then he goes off and boasts about the purchase.”
(Proverbs 20:14)
The ex-NFL football player, Evan Mathis, made headlines
earlier this year when he sold his mint condition, 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball
card for $2.88M. $2.88M! That’s $2,880,000.00 for a small piece of
cardboard for those scoring at home. It
seems to be a lot of money for something that doesn’t love you back, you can’t
live in or drive, and really shouldn’t eat.
When I collected baseball cards as a kid, I would have died
to have a card like that. I thought I
was going to make it big with my 1986 Topps Dwight Gooden card (even though the
1984 was the one to have), 1986 Donruss Jose Canseco “Rated Rookie” card, and
the 1988 Kevin Seitzer Fleer rookie card.
Alas, my dreams of million dollar baseball cards were undone by mass
production, drugs, steroids, and fading play.
The value of even my best baseball cards for consistent players on the
straight and narrow are worth very little now, even 30 years later.
But somehow Evan Mathis got someone to pay him $2.88M for
one of his. Wow!
As a Charlotte
property manager, I’ve been seeing a real estate version of this play out
in the past couple of years. Rents have
been going up steadily almost everywhere which has skewed the old values of
what particular houses in different areas would rent for.
For example, we had a rental house that rented in the $800
range in a non-desirable area last year.
A new owner took over the property, did some improvements, and wanted to
rent it in the $1,300 range.
We talked about it and the conversation went something like
this:
Owner: How about renting
it at $1,350 a month? As the expert, what do you think?
Me (expertly replying and wearing my glasses): The data I just pulled up would not support
that price. It looks like a much larger
house rented for $1,150. There has never
been a house in that area that rented that high…
Owner: Hmmm… well list
it at $1,350 anyway.
Me (expertly): Okay.
Ultimately, the house rented for $1,350 and was on the
market less than a week. So much for the
“expert” opinion…
In hot markets, it’s really tough to gauge how much
properties will actually rent for.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it gets exacerbated by
perceived scarcity.
Years ago, I made the decision to adopt the rental pricing
policy of “I recommend, but the owner can ultimately pick the listing price.” I go off of data and will typically recommend
what I feel the existing market pricing will allow. However, that’s not always right.
Evan Mathis could have heard that expecting to get $3M for
his 1952 piece of cardboard with Mickey Mantle’s photo on it was lunacy. But someone, somewhere is bragging about
buying it. And he’s bragging as well!
Happy Landlording!
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