Last week, a condominium in the Bellevue Commons sold for $399,000 in 24 days from the time that Autumn Faughn of Compass Tennessee, LLC listed the property. Faughn originally listed the property for $415,0000, and Milad Yakoub of simpliHOM sold the home.

Faughn noted in the home’s description that “Wedgewood Homes is committed to providing value for your client by covering closing costs and reducing payments through interest rate buydowns.” She held true to her word, and Yakoub’s buyers were able to cash in for $6,000 of seller paid closing costs, a nice concession for a first-time homebuyer or any buyer, for that matter.

Of interest is that Wedgewood Homes is owned by Catamount Properties 2018, LLC, which owned the property, having acquired it June 22, Metro tax records show. Catamount Properties 2018 is registered as a Foreign Limited Liability Company, according to opencorporates.com., based in Redondo Beach, California, with filings in Delaware, New Jersey, South Carolina, Missouri, Florida, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and Alaska.

While it does not show in a Realtracs, the condo sold June 22 for $389,000. The previous owner paid $199,900 in 2015.

To recap, Catamount bought the condo June 22 for $389,900, sold it in November for $399,000 and paid $6,000 of the buyer’s closing costs, as well as a few thousand dollars in real estate commissions.

It lost money on a property it carried for less than six months and listed less than four months after closing. Do they know something we don’t know?

Property values appear to be steady in the area, as a unit the same size closed in March for $432,000 with a list price of $381,000. Another closed in June for $421,000 after Trish Woolwine listed it for $389,900.

And in September, a unit of the exact square footage sold for $419,000 with a list price of $409,900. Do we know something they don’t know?

The last three sales were $419,000, $421,000 and $432,000, and then this sells for $399,000. The seller wanted out and apparently had a better place for the $399,000 less closing costs.

Yakoub landed a good deal for his buyer, and Faughn did as was instructed, selling the unit. She has one other Catamount properties listed, and the Courthouse Retrieval Service lists the LLC as owning seven more in Davidson County.

In this column last week, lenders were lauded for the stringent guidelines they had implemented and enforced, helping to ensure market prices would hold and foreclosures would not proliferate the real estate landscape.

However, the investor, in particular the out-of-town, out-of-state and foreign investors, would require more information than Realtracs provides. If investors begin to disengage their real estate holdings and endure the losses, that could have a negative effect on the market.

Yet, with more and more cranes silhouetting the horizon, and more money flying into commercial investment, it seems likely that the economy will continue to grow in Nashville.

In the meantime, one condo with three bedrooms, two full bathrooms and two half bathrooms sold for $399,000 – $210 per square foot. Faughn stated the home featured stainless steel appliances and cosmetic upgrades.

Two/one buydowns are all the rage for homebuyers these days. Mike Garrettson with Wesley Mortgage noted the fee paid in effect pays the interest in advance to the lender, allowing the lender to reduce the monthly payments since they have their first two years of interest.

For example, a $1 million mortgage with a 2/1 buydown might require a $20,000 fee paid to the lender in exchange for a 5.25% mortgage for one year, a 5.625% the second and a 5.99% for the next 30 years. That would allow the buyer to have a reduced mortgage payment for two years and hope they can refinance by the third year.

In most cases, the sales price is raised by the $20,000 so the seller does not feel the pain of paying the $20,000. The house would need to appraise for the $1,020,000 in order for the “grossing up the sales price” practice to work.

Richard Courtney is a licensed real estate broker with Fridrich and Clark Realty, LLC, and can be reached at [email protected].