Photo courtesy of Dennis Gottlieb A Camarillo home in Spanish Hills is up for sale this weekend, and will go to the "best reasonable offer" over $594,837. The owners have put a deposit on a lake front property in Missouri and need to sell their home before they move.

After months of waiting for someone to purchase her Spanish Hills home, Cheryl Conroy decided she couldn't hold out any longer.

She and her husband have put a deposit down on a lakefront property in Missouri, where they plan to retire near where their son and grandchildren live. But they might lose the money if their Camarillo home doesn't sell soon.

Last fall, the Conroys listed the 1,928-square-foot, three-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath detached home for $858,000. It features an office and sits on a 7,200-square-foot lot. She took the home off the market around Christmas and relisted it again earlier this year, reducing the price to $849,000.

The property generated a lot of interest, but there were no bids.

So Conroy, an interior designer, enlisted the help of Dennis Gottlieb, director of Medfield Investment Group Inc., a Las Vegas-based firm that provides relocation services for corporate executives. He purchased a share of the home and will reap some of the profit when it sells.

Given the time constraint, Gottlieb decided the fastest way to raise interest in the house is to let buyers set the price.

Presale inspection is today

Gottlieb placed an advertisement in The Star to announce the home must be sold by Sunday night for the "best reasonable offer" over $594,837. The presale inspection is scheduled for 2 to 4 p.m. today and Sunday. A loan officer from Main Street Mortgage in Westlake Village will be on site to ensure bidders financially qualify — one more precaution to prevent the deal from falling through.

Gottlieb said he's hoping to get somewhere in the middle of the property's original asking price and the $594,837 reserve price.

The advertisement seems to have spawned plenty of interest. Since it began running last Sunday, Gottlieb has received 30 to 40 calls about the house.

"In her situation, it's absolutely the best strategy," said Gottlieb of Camarillo. "The buyers are basically bargaining with each other, not with the seller."

Prospective buyers will submit written offers, and then the owners will accept the best one. Gottlieb is optimistic a deal will be made by Sunday, and possibly wrap up Monday.

With just five weeks before they close escrow on their new home and anxiety building, the Conroys — who declined to be interviewed for this story — are eager to sell.

The house hasn't sold because it was priced too high, said Bob Doughtery of Coldwell Banker, who was Conroy's Realtor until July, when Gottlieb stepped in.

"If she had gotten the price below the $800,000 mark, we would have probably been able to sell," he said.

Gottlieb thinks most sellers and buyers seem to have a skewed perception of the market, with buyers thinking the market is more depressed than it is and sellers thinking the market is better than it is.

Some economists predict housing prices will remain flat or fall slightly as sales remain sluggish until 2009. They say when the market does make a comeback, it will be conservative, with single-digit annual increases in sales and appreciation.

Ventura County's median price for existing homes in June was $692,730, down from $707,690, or 2.1 percent, from the same period a year ago, while sales slumped 22.2 percent over the same span, the California Association of Realtors reported Wednesday.

Setting sights high in a soft market

The Conroys might have aimed high at a time when the market is soft. The most comparable home with similar square footage in the Golf Course Villas had an asking price of $759,000 and sold for $773,500 in October, said Joe Virnig, president of Ventura County Coastal Association of Realtors. He said he believes the same pricing strategy would have been successful for the Conroys.

Doughtery thinks the weekend's event will likely expedite the sale, but not without a cost.

"I think if you want to unload a property for less than the actual value, then this is the way to go," he said.

Still, Virnig warns there must be a catch to this type of marketing tactic, and calls it a "gimmick" to get people to see the house. It's the first time he's seen such a strategy in Ventura County.

"I have trouble believing they'd honor the $594,000 price if that's all they get," he said. "I see all kinds of problems with real estate agents adopting these tactics. I'm not about to adopt it — it's fraught with risk. Until the inspection period is up, it would be difficult to be sure that you didn't end up buying a problem."

Gottlieb says he's used the strategy a few times and that it's a good way to sell a house.

"It's like a silent auction," he said. "We let the market decide."