How is the house selling season going?

Parent Cafe
581

<p>How is the house selling season going?</p>

<p>In the town closest to where I live, there is a new “house for auction” sign up. This house was listed at a little over $800,000 three years ago. I don’t know how long it has been for sale because I wasn’t looking at the market before then. It went down to $650,000 which is the tax assessment. It is completely redone, in move-in condition with no obvious problems. On the same street are three houses at over one million that have also been on the market at least three years. They have come down in price a few hundred thousand :slight_smile: My understanding is that they were bought for very much less some years ago and then had fantastic and very expensive makeovers. I have been told there has not yet ever been a one million dollar sale on the street or close by. </p>

<p>Same scenario in another nearby town.</p>

<p>What happens when these very expensive homes don’t sell and their owners need to leave or can’t afford to keep them? I am guessing these homes go to foreclosure a lot more slowly than something a fraction of the cost?? If the owners actually own them, maybe they can afford to sell at what the market really is??</p>

<p>Is this happening nationwide?</p>

582

<p>I am now hearing of families buying what might be considered entry level single family home is our community that they are hoping to rent out. The plan is that in the future their children will be able to return to our community and be able to afford to live. These homes are priced at almost half of what they were in the past.
In my immediate area which is upscale but has a wide variety of houses,some old ranch style and some new mega spanish style mansions. The houses that are priced well are selling quickly. Those are mainly homes that went back to the bank or homes that the people have been in for many years. They can afford to sell and downsize. The houses that aren’t selling are the homes that people purchased more recently who don’t have the option of selling at market. If the home doesn’t sell in the first couple of months it seems to sit for years. I know 3 multi-million dollar properties that have been on the market at least 3 yrs with very little price reduction.</p>

583

<p>Off topic question. I mentioned unthread that we are trying to refinance at a lower rate, only to find our home that was valued at about $900k a few years ago is now valued at about $370k. Not as bad for us at it is for others around here, but we seem to be paying taxes for a home worth $470.00k. Is that “right”.</p>

584

<p>Call your county’s assessor’s office and explain the situation. I think you have a good chance of getting a lower assessment.</p>

<p>That is a big drop in proprty value. But I like your attitude.:)</p>

585

<p>^ Yeah well, we were fortunate to nab it during the last huge price drop. We watched for awhile, and fortunately got it for less than it’s worth now. Not true for a LOT of folks around here. I think more homes than not are “underwater”.</p>

<p>I’ve always told my husband these estimates are just numbers on paper, not the real “value” of your home, so don’t go planning and borrowing as if you have “real” money!</p>

586

<p>You are smart.</p>

587

<p>^ Assessments are typically done as of a certain point in time. Depending on how often they re-assess in your area, your assessment could be based on prices as they were 1, 2 or even 3 years ago.</p>

<p>In my area they reassess annually (it used to be every 3 years, but they changed it during the big run-up in the 90’s), so values are theoretically based on the FMV on 1/1/2011. If prices have dropped that won’t be reflected until next Jan 1.</p>

<p>And we only get a certain window of time to argue for a lower assessment, I think it is 45 days or so after the Jan 1 reassessment. You can’t call them up whenever you want during the year. Different towns use different dates, they all have different fiscal calendars.</p>

588

<p>Ah! Thanks all. I don’t think prices are going anywhere soon. Although the house we essentially GAVE away for THIS one is going up value, and is now worth almost as much as THIS one. When we “sold” it, it was on the market at about $169k, and we couldn’t GIVE it away…except to the person who sold us ours…hmmmmm…I knew they were savvy, but we just couldn’t afford to carry two mortgages…</p>

589

<p>Shrinkrap- call your county assessor and ask about getting a reassessment. We are also in Ca and were able to get several properties lowered.</p>

590

<p>I am on it! Finally found a use for the pile of mail! A June 30 2011 valuation notice, with a contact by October 1 date. CC saves me $$$$$ once again!!!</p>

591

<p>^ I’ve gone through the appeal process several times. Here’s what I’ve found for my area, YMMV of course.</p>

<p>1) Their goal is to find reasons to deny your appeal. They may seem friendly, but they don’t really want to help you. Keep that in mind.</p>

<p>2) Try to find several comps that sold very close to the assessment date. If the dates are off by several months, they will argue that market conditions have changed, and deny your appeal. They will not accept a market analysis by a RE agent.</p>

<p>3) Sales comps must be bonafide, arms-length sales - no foreclosures, no short sales, no sweetheart deals (e.g., parent selling to a child). They will not consider distressed sales as comps.</p>

<p>4) The comps must be located as close to your house as possible. If they are miles away, they can argue they aren’t comparable because the neighborhoods are different.</p>

<p>5) The comps must be as similar to your house as possible. Pictures of the comps, the street they are on, size, layout, no. of bedrooms, etc. The closer you can get to your house, the better your chances.</p>

<p>6) Check the assessments of similar houses in the neighborhood. If your assessment is out of line, you can use those as comps. If your assessment is similar, don’t use them as comps.</p>

<p>7) Pick the comps that make your case. Don’t include ones that don’t. Make them try to find other comps if they can.</p>

<p>8) A friendly RE agent can help a lot with finding comps. I have it easy, DW is an agent. :cool:</p>

<p>9) Write it up so that you can give them something, summarizing the comps in a nice table, explain why you think you are over-valued, and give what you think should be the actual assessment. You have to be a little careful here - if you low-ball too much, they will deny your appeal. They will probably ask you what you think the value is, you need to have a number and be able to justify it.</p>

<p>In a low-sales market, it can be pretty hard to find good comps. And it can take several hours work to pull all this together, but the better prepared you are, the better your chances.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

592

<p>okay…That sounds like WAAAY too much work. How much could I save? In N Cal, on the difference between $375k vs $475k? Just for funsies…I thought the zillow stuff reflected the factors you are describing. Is that so? Other than that, what is “similar”? These are custom homes on a variety of lot sizes. And in a fairly unique part of a smallish town. I DO know a realtor or two.</p>

<p>According to Zillow, nothing has “recently sold” even CLOSE to $475 k in the whole city.</p>

593

<p>I think every area is a little different and I would call the assessor’s office.</p>

<p>You would save about a 1,000.</p>

<p>Zillow is not accurate enough.</p>

594

<p>Okay, thanks.</p>

595

<p>How much would you save? Going from $475K to $375K is a 21% reduction in value. What is 21% of your tax bill? In my area, that would be $2000. And the savings will carry forward to future years, too.</p>

<p>It doesn’t take that long to pull it together. If you can get the MLS listings from the sales, they will have most of the data you need. We get pictures from the listings that are in MLS, for example. Maybe 2-3 hours or so.</p>

<p>$2K for a few hours work is not a bad payback. </p>

<p>Zillow is just an opinion, they won’t take that. I think you can find recent sales on there, that would be usable data.</p>

<p>What is “similar”? Similar square footage, similar lot size, same number of bedrooms, same condition. The less similar they are, the more adjustments you have to make (for example, what is the difference in value if you are on a 1/2 acre lot vs. a 1 acre lot? If one house has a pool and the other doesn’t?), and the more chances they have to deny you.</p>

596

<p>Cal property is taxed at a rate of about 1.1 percent…so the savings are going to be closer to 1,000. That is just for one year. There should be savings in additional years.</p>

597

<p>We just had a bank conduct an appraisal of our house, and they sent us the results.</p>

<p>We aren’t refinancing, we just agreed to trade a neighbor a right of way over a swampy strip at the far end of the property in exchange for an additional half acre right behind the house, which will give us an additional buffer, should he ever succeed in selling the 4-acre lot behind us to which he needed a right of way for a driveway. So the deal, if anything, increases the value of our property. But the bank that holds our HELOC needed an appraisal to be sure that the percentages continued to work out for them.</p>

<p>Anyway, although down from its probably peak, the appraisal came in at $455K, and we bought the place at $265K in 1995. Certainly we’ve put some money into it since then, but even accounting for that we are still about $125-50K ahead of the game. On paper. :)</p>

<p>Of course, the tax assessment is $552K, which has been unrealistic for several years, but there is no hope of getting the board to budge until the next assessment is done. At the last assessment, they drastically raised the values on all of the “antique” houses in our part of town.</p>

598

<p>The lowball sale on my dads house fell through, and then itt got affected by tropical storm Irene. I think the repairs are almost done. Sigh…</p>

599

<p>shrinkrap, acknowledging that the assessment process and the current situation is different in different markets, I can tell you our experience with a successful reassessment. We used a company that performs this service for clients, all of the gathering of info (as mentioned by notrichenough) and attendance at the actual meetings to discuss the reassessment. The fee was in the range of $500 and the result of the reassessment was that our taxes were lowered by $4000. I don’t recall how we found this company, it may have been through a realtor friend, but it was certainly worth it for us.</p>

600

<p>jym626, so sorry to hear about your house sale falling through. That stinks</p>