Why Selling a Unique Home Is Challenging—and Can Leave Some Owners Feeling ‘Stiffed’

Snapping up a quirky home might help some live out the adventure of a lifetime—but for some owners, selling these properties comes with its own set of unique challenges.

When Ann Levengood decided to let go of her beloved double-dome home two hours outside of Seattle, she thought she did everything a seller needed to do to get a good price.

“We built a new garage and completely did the heavy work with a $50,000 new roof, new drainage, new retaining walls, landscaping (including removal of alder trees), interior was completely redone, new lighting, new skylights, you name it. We had zero tasks upon inspection,” she tells Realtor.com®.

“The inspector had never seen such a clean house.”

But when it came time to price the Poulsbo property, Levengood and her agent didn’t see eye to eye.

While the proud owner wanted to price the house at $425,000, the cautious agent listed it at $339,000.

The problem? The house, with its double domes, was unusual.

Not only can it be more difficult to find the proper buyer for such a home, but it is also challenging to find comps.

Even so, the home took only two months to close a sale at full price, leaving Levengood with the lingering feeling that she had been stiffed.

The agent “recently told us that it was a hell of a place, but that doesn’t help us out now,” she says, adding that she believes agents were “prejudiced” against the house.

“I couldn’t even get agents to come out and see it,” she says.

Why selling a unique home is challenging

Levengood’s experience highlights not only the challenges in properly pricing and selling a unique property, but also the disparity between what an agent and what a homeowner think it’s worth.

“The word ‘unique’ in real estate can mean many different things and it is often a descriptor that buyers don’t always respond to positively,” says Cara Ameer, an agent licensed in both Florida and California. “It often indicates the home has a lot of challenges associated with it, and they could be difficult to overcome.”

And one of the biggest challenges with unique homes is simply finding the right buyer, says Seamus Nally, CEO of Turbo Tenant.

“The majority of buyers that Realtors® generally deal with are those with family considerations,” adds Nally. “Unique homes can sometimes be less family-friendly.”

Ameer says she’s worked with several unique properties over the years, and they all come with their unique issues.

Once, she represented a “butterfly house” in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, which was shaped like the winged insect.

“It was built in 1981 and was a very odd contemporary shape,” she says.  “It was anything but conforming. People loved the lot, but to work with the existing structure would have taken so much work, it would have been better off to start from scratch.”

The house had already been on and off the market for three years when Ameer took over the listing. She focused on finding a buyer who would want to gut renovate.

But the seller thought the home was worth more than Ameer did, and the pair ended up parting ways.

“What the market was willing to pay for the home versus what the seller was willing to sell for at the time was quite different,” she says.

The home ended up going for $617,500—less than what Ameer had wanted to price it at.

Another odd home she listed was one in Ponte Vedra Beach that sat directly on a golf course island. Not next to it. On it.

Owning this house meant not only being uncomfortably close to flying golf balls, but also being a member of the pricey golf club, which was mandatory.

Other issues had to do with its very 1980s features.

“One of the biggest challenges was the sunken family room whereby you had to step down into it from the foyer, dining room, and kitchen,” Ameer says. “Buyers did not like that at all, and many looked for a way to raise the floor to make it even.”

Nor were potential owners thrilled by the bridal staircase, long wall of mirrors, and the fact that the main room in the house was not a family or dining area—but a bar.

“Many who saw it in person didn’t want to deal with all the hassle and expense,” says Ameer.

As for how to market a home with these unique challenges, Ameer says, “You name it, I did it.” The house was even featured on a local newscast, but this seemed to bring in only looky-loos than serious buyers.

Three years in, the right buyer walked through the bright red door and didn’t trip over the sunken family room. In 2016, it was sold for $790,000.

“That home is worth well over $3.5 million today,” says Ameer.

What to do when you have an unusual property

Levengood admits that agents might have a point. Unusual homes aren’t for everyone.

“With domes, the layout for furniture is hard to figure out, and that’s a big thing,” she says. It took her a while to realize that regular rugs simply do not fit the dome angles, and that round or oval rugs are needed.

And because of the round roofs, specialists are needed if you want to replace them.

“We paid quite a bit. That was a drawback,” she says of the new roof.

But at the end of the day, she believes the dome home—given its pristine condition and pricey upgrades—was priced low, not fair.

“Hold steady” against the agent’s listing price, she advises. “Weigh the value of selling low against taking that money and putting it into the stock market or another property.”

The double-dome home is currently estimated to be worth $654,000, under the city’s sold median price of $748,000.

“I am very disappointed with [agents] selling domes,” Levengood says.

But she admits that, selling challenges aside, she’s eager to buy another dome home and often looks at them online.

“I love them so much,” she says.