Foreclosure price question (appraisal, mortgage, mortgage, sales)

[Giesela]

In 2003, a buyer bought X property for 213,000.
In Feb 2010 they sold it to the Fedeal Natl Mortgage Association for 150,000 (according to the assessors site)
Its kind of hard to decipher but there is 2,000 or 4,000 in taxes owed
The house is for sale for 187,500
The county assessors 100% market value is 278,000 (wh seems quite a bit much to me even if it was in great shape)

I suppose there are a lot of variables but what might you suppose how the various prices of 150,000 and 187,000 where arrived at?

Initially I thought the house might be something I wanted to pursue since its a ranch on a crawlspace (very rare around here) on a few acres but looking at it on the county website it seems to have some weird additions one of which is an indoor pool? It looks like the attached garage may have been converted too (I hate that). I don't know, I've looked at a fair number of houses and the weird and or cheap a$$ people things do, the nonmaintenance, ruins a lot of properties.

This is sort of an exercise in the possible ins and outs of pricing.

[rjrcm]

The previous owner did not sell it to FNMA (Federal National Mortgage Assoc). The $150,000 was likely the amount of the outstanding mortgage when FNMA took the house back in the foreclosure sale. No relation to market value.

The $187,500 bank listing price was arrived at by looking at recent comparable sales, and may be close to market value.

The assessors value may be months or even years old depending on when they reassess values. Even then, I would not use it for determining value for listing the home for sale or to base an offer.

[Giesela]

I understand that in some areas of the country that assessors values may often be old but not around here. They are usually quite current and, since I've been looking quite awhile and have the luxury of checking after a house is sold, the sales prices were usually at or 10-20% higher than the assessors value. Lately the selling price and the assessors value have been closer - this has been our "bust" (I'm in Ohio). Oddly 2 years ago (the dip was in sight but people were still in denial) I had a realtor tell me that was the norm, selling price 10-20% higher than assessors market/tax number, depending on condition. It was weird because it sounded like she didn't even use comps. But in this case certainly something is wrong.

20%% of 213,000 is 42,600, so say 20% down would be a mortgage on 170,400 - so that would be roughly 10,000 in mortgage payments? Real rough numbers sure. So that would 160,000, pretty close I guess.

[bbkennedy]

rjrcm is correct about where those numbers came from. Assessors use mass appraisal techniques. They don't do individual 'appraisals'. They certainly don't take into account the cost of correcting deferred maintenance in the case of a bank-owned house. He offered sage advice about not relying on that estimate to make an offer or to list the house. You should heed it. I've done hundreds of foreclosure appraisals (REO) in my career and I assure you assessed value is nothing but a foot note.