The hopeful homeowners showed up in droves, queuing on the sidewalk in front of Santa Clara real estate development Nuevo Homes and settling into their makeshift campsites for the night. Then, they waited.
The scene resembled some sort of bizarre Black Friday sale with a line of people stretching down the block, many of them lingering there for hours.
The doorbuster deal in question? The chance to buy a newly built townhouse, 18 of which were listed for sale on Saturday morning at a fixed price of $1.2 million, reports NBC Bay Area. The properties were constructed by SummerHill Homes, which has completed more than 70 developments in the last 40 years, according to its website. Nuevo is among its most recent projects, debuting 331 homes as well as 20,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space in Sept. 2019.
“It’s really hard to get a house in Silicon Valley,” real estate agent Nancy Reynolds told NBC Bay Area, adding that she took turns waiting in the line overnight with her clients. “And probably most people in line know which lot they want.”
Another realtor, Jeremy Naval, said he had been at the development since Wednesday. The general consensus among those vying for one of the townhouses was that it was easier to wait in line for hours than to engage in a bidding war.
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“My client just really, really wanted to be the first one, so I promised him. I said, ‘Whatever I have to do to get you the first one, I’ll do it,’” Naval told NBC Bay Area.
As of Sunday morning, over 240 homes at Nuevo have been sold, encompassing more than 70% of the development.