Pacaso takes Sonoma home off its website
It’s all quiet on the eastern front of the war between the real estate company Pacaso and the neighbors on Old Winery Court; even more so now that the Sonoma home is no longer listed on the Pacaso website.
Pacaso spokesperson Martha Thomas said that the home was taken off the website as part of a “common practice” in real estate, yet neighbors of the property believe it is a sign their hard-fought campaign is forcing Pacaso to shift its business strategy.
“I think they found that they made a huge mistake trying to buy a middle of the road residence in neighborhoods like this,” said Carl Sherrill, one of the residents of Old Winery Court who has organized against Pacaso. “I think they’re just very arrogant that they think they could just pull this off.”
As part of the neighborhood group StopPacasoNow, they have monitored the property for nearly a year and developed a website to garner support for their cause: getting Pacaso and its “vacation home” business model out of their neighborhood. Regular monitoring of Pacaso’s website uncovered the removal of the Sonoma home from its listings.
Nancy Gardner, Sherrill’s partner, said Pacaso’s listings look “pretty glum” as properties have sat on the available listings page of the website for months, including the property on Old Winery Court.
“Stuff isn’t moving,” Gardner said.
Pacaso purchased the home for $4 million in May 2021 -- a rate 133% of the approximately $3 million estimated price, according to Zillow -- and has sought to bring in “co-owners” who will use the property as a second home, staying anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks. Pacaso’s business model touts making second homes more affordable with fractional homeownership, where up to eight buyers share a property and pay Pacaso fees to manage it.
Yet since August, when the first co-owner named Alfred Miller visited the house for a few days; rarely has anyone stayed at the property overnight, and never more than a couple of days, Gardner and Sherrill said. Mostly the visitors have been pest control or maintenance workers, they said.
“The rodents are going to move in if nobody is there,” Sherrill said. “There was some activity early on. But since early summer, we really haven’t seen anyone.”
In response to those allegations, Thomas said Pacaso does not disclose details about co-owners, but it “retains some ownership in the property,” although she did not provide ownership details.
“We will offer the remaining ownership stakes for sale at some point in the future,” Thomas wrote in an email but declined to provide specifics on when that would be.
But to learn more about the “common practice” of taking a property off the market in real estate, the Index-Tribune contacted local real estate expert, Realtor Jeannette Fung, who has more than 40 years of experience in real estate.
“Sometimes, it's easier or more prudent to remove it from the market because then it doesn't look like they've been trying to sell this thing for x number of months. And it's not moving, so something must be wrong with it,” Fung said.
By reintroducing the property later on, a parcel that was struggling to sell can get top billing and “look fresh,” attracting new buyers, Fung said. However, Fung said Pacaso’s issues selling the property at Old Winery Court likely won’t be resolved as simply as relisting the property.