Building:	Klee Lofts and Suites
Location:	Belltown
Client:	Val Thomas, Inc
# of Homes:	153 - Conversion
Year Completed:	2005
# of Stories:	6 and 12

Challenge

There are over 100 homes of one plan which is a typical open one bedroom home. Our primary concern was the marketability of so many of this plan type which lacked privacy in the sleeping area as well as the sheer number of this unit type with little else to sell.

Another challenge is the lack of one-to-one parking. The developer needed top dollar for the homes but not all the homes included reserved parking.

An additional challenge was to make the building appealing to buyers while there were still renters occupying a number of homes providing cash flow for the Seller during the sales and marketing campaign.

Solution

We recommended an interior design team who worked with us to create several models of the same typical one bedroom but with different design concepts so that we could appeal to several groups that we had identified as our target markets including young single professionals who wanted a central location at a modest price as well as second home buyers and to a more limited extent, investors.

We determined that in order to get top dollar we would offer reserved parking for the highest priced homes which were the two bedrooms and the penthouses. The rest of the homes we offered a parking pass which meant they had parking in the building but it was not reserved. This allowed the opportunity for everyone to feel as if they had parking even though the reality was there would be enough turnovers in the garage that at any given time there would be adequate parking for all who needed it.

An aggressive marketing campaign ensued focusing on the young, single buyer who wanted an excellent downtown location at an affordable price. We also marketed hard to second home buyers who lived on one of Washington's islands or another city and worked in the city during the week. Extensive direct mail, our proprietary database, web site marketing, ferry marketing as well as traditional advertising brought in the clientele and our model homes allowed buyers to see the vision.

Results

We paced our inventory releases to offer homes on floors with the least amount of renters and worked with the building management to keep the building professionally managed so that buyers and renters would be able to live together during the sales process while keeping a high level of service. The entire property was sold out in just over one year.