Need help with the appropriate value of a house...Realtors or anyone really (price, area)

[North_Raleigh_Guy]

Originally Posted by melijane

Ok just looked at Wake Coounty. Is the approximate value on there correct?

No. That is the tax value based on what somebody thought it was worth in 2008. You need to find the value of the home in Today's Market. That is what the appraiser can help determine.

[gibsonlespaul]

Just looked at my house and the total value assessed is right in today's market and what other people are selling at in the neighborhood-maybe 5K lower than I would ask-refinanced last year via Wells and amazing how close it is to Well's appraisal-

[cheapdad00]

Originally Posted by melijane

We are currently renting a house and the landlord has aske dif we would be interestedin purchasing the house at the end of our lease. the terms are very good as he is offering to apply 100% of our rent until the end of the lease(October) to the down payment. We think the pricing is a little high compared to what we have seen listed. Obviously we realize that is only half the picture and would be interested to know recent home sales or for a realtor to give us some advice on a fair value.

Details:

.75 wooded acre
2200 sq ft
2 car garage
3 BD
2.5 ba
Built 1989
Zip 27539
Conveient location-considered Apex-just over the Cary border
Reasonably updated-wood floors down, new-ish carpet upstairs, kitchen renovated with corian

Can you help??

Are you in a cookie cutterish subdivision with nearly identical housing - if so, you may be able to do a rough CMA yourself depending on sales traffic in your area? Some more fundamental questions to ask:

• Do you have money saved for a down payment? [OR IS THE ONLY REASON YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THE HOUSE BECAUSE YOUR RENT IS GENERATING THE DOWN PAYMENT FOR YOU]
• Do you like this house such that you would want to own it? [Start looking at comps to that house and see if some of them make more sense for you. It's easy now to see how long other similar houses took to sell, how much they sold, how many price reductions they had while listed]
• What sort of problems has it had since you have lived in it?
• What are the age of the major systems - if they haven't been replaced yet, then @20 yrs they are near the end of their useful life - especially a gas furnace heat exchanger?
• Does it have masonite siding and polybutelene pipes - if so, what kind of condition are each in? [my prior house was a mid-80s special with masonite on a wooded lot and the north side never received any light and was full of rotted siding]
• If landlord is approaching you directly to buy the house, it should be priced less than comps because in theory he is not planning on paying realtor commission - so use that as a negotiating tool.
• You may be able to go through the transaction without a buyers agent, but if you decide to go that route, please use a good real estate attorney to represent you along the way. [The real estate attorney will help you most in getting the language such that you can get out of the contract if you later decide not to go through with it - but you need to get the language right before you sign anything.]

[cheapdad00]

Originally Posted by gibsonlespaul

Just looked at my house and the total value assessed is right in today's market and what other people are selling at in the neighborhood-maybe 5K lower than I would ask-refinanced last year via Wells and amazing how close it is to Well's appraisal-

There is wide variation dependent upon location in regards to how close you can get to 2008 assessed value. There is definite weakness in the higher end of the market in certain regions. I have been salivating at all the discounted McMansions in Wakefield selling for 45-70% of their peak values in 2004-2007. I can't convince my wife to relocate there, but the values in the $500K-$1M+ range are intriguing.

[gibsonlespaul]

Very True cheapdad00-If this thread was back in 2007 or earlier then I would never had made my comment since Wake Real estate's site was always significantly less than market-now it seems to be dead on for certain areas- depends on the area and price point of the neighborhood.

[VickiR]

Forget zillow...it is wrong 99% of the time.

Forget Wake County website...it shows what a home sold for but not what closing costs were paid by the seller. If a home sold for $100,000 with a seller paying $5,000 in closing costs, the real sales price is $95,000.

To get any type of market value of a home, you can only compare it to homes in the same n'hood. Prices vary neighborhood by neighborhood.

I would suggest you speak to a lender. Find out if you qualify for a loan. Find out if the lender has an appraiser that can help you. It may cost $350 but it is money well spent if you KNOW you can qualify for a loan.

If you decide to "save" the $350 for an appraisal, and you agree to pay $100,000 for the home and the bank's appraiser says the house is not worth that value...the bank will not loan you the money for that mortgage loan.

My suggestion would be to split the cost of the appraiser with the seller AFTER you find out if you qualify for the loan.

Vicki

[melijane]

Originally Posted by cheapdad00

Are you in a cookie cutterish subdivision with nearly identical housing - if so, you may be able to do a rough CMA yourself depending on sales traffic in your area? Some more fundamental questions to ask:

• Do you have money saved for a down payment? [OR IS THE ONLY REASON YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THE HOUSE BECAUSE YOUR RENT IS GENERATING THE DOWN PAYMENT FOR YOU]
• Do you like this house such that you would want to own it? [Start looking at comps to that house and see if some of them make more sense for you. It's easy now to see how long other similar houses took to sell, how much they sold, how many price reductions they had while listed]
• What sort of problems has it had since you have lived in it?
• What are the age of the major systems - if they haven't been replaced yet, then @20 yrs they are near the end of their useful life - especially a gas furnace heat exchanger?
• Does it have masonite siding and polybutelene pipes - if so, what kind of condition are each in? [my prior house was a mid-80s special with masonite on a wooded lot and the north side never received any light and was full of rotted siding]
• If landlord is approaching you directly to buy the house, it should be priced less than comps because in theory he is not planning on paying realtor commission - so use that as a negotiating tool.
• You may be able to go through the transaction without a buyers agent, but if you decide to go that route, please use a good real estate attorney to represent you along the way. [The real estate attorney will help you most in getting the language such that you can get out of the contract if you later decide not to go through with it - but you need to get the language right before you sign anything.]

It is not a cookie cutter neighborhood at all.... each lot is large and the houses are all different(custom possibly) When I look on zillow or even Wake Cty tax records they vary from 250-400 in value.

We have some money for a DP, but this would about almost double it-lowering our mortgage payments substanstially. Alternatively, it would allow us to use some of that money to do some small renovations making the configuration work better for us. Ultimately this could be our dream house with some money and work.

I will definitely be getting an appraisal, an inspection by a professional engineer and an attorney.

[toot68]

Contrary to Vicki's post, start with Zillow. The most useful feature on the site is recent home sales, it will give you a picture of the sales in the last year or two within a couple miles of you. Look at how those sale values compare to the assessed values (and pay attention to which direction differences in sales values diverge. And get a sense of how the different surrounding neighborhoods compare to yours. Look for houses built 15-25 years ago, of similar quality to those in your neighborhood.

If there are a dozen sales a year of similar houses to yours in your neighborhood, figuring out your houses value will be pretty easy (both for you and an appraiser). However, if there are only one or two houses that sell each year in your neighborhood (with no guarantee that they are similar), an appraiser is going to have to spread a much wider net to get three recent sales. This is more common in older neighborhoods with varied housing stock than in recent cookie cutter neighborhoods where all the houses are similar and your get a dozen sales a year.

These are good tools to help you to familiarize yourself with how houses get valued in your area by the most important people, the ones who are willing to buy houses there. Don't just rely on an appraiser who may or may not have a clue about the nuances of where you live. For example, we've done two refinancings and a HELOC in the last year and a half, which required three appraisals. They varied in value by over 20% ($55K!!!). The low guy used comps from a neighborhood a mile and half away full of rentals next to a trailer park, and the high guy used comps from two neighborhoods less than a mile away full of high end custom homes, neither of which are good comps for our neighborhood.

The main point is you don't want to pay more for the house than it would take to sell it in a reasonable amount of time...getting a feel for how much and how quickly that happens in your area is key, and not just some number your appraiser pulls out of his ass.

[melijane]

Originally Posted by toot68

Contrary to Vicki's post, start with Zillow. The most useful feature on the site is recent home sales, it will give you a picture of the sales in the last year or two within a couple miles of you. Look at how those sale values compare to the assessed values (and pay attention to which direction differences in sales values diverge. And get a sense of how the different surrounding neighborhoods compare to yours. Look for houses built 15-25 years ago, of similar quality to those in your neighborhood.

If there are a dozen sales a year of similar houses to yours in your neighborhood, figuring out your houses value will be pretty easy (both for you and an appraiser). However, if there are only one or two houses that sell each year in your neighborhood (with no guarantee that they are similar), an appraiser is going to have to spread a much wider net to get three recent sales. This is more common in older neighborhoods with varied housing stock than in recent cookie cutter neighborhoods where all the houses are similar and your get a dozen sales a year.

These are good tools to help you to familiarize yourself with how houses get valued in your area by the most important people, the ones who are willing to buy houses there. Don't just rely on an appraiser who may or may not have a clue about the nuances of where you live. For example, we've done two refinancings and a HELOC in the last year and a half, which required three appraisals. They varied in value by over 20% ($55K!!!). The low guy used comps from a neighborhood a mile and half away full of rentals next to a trailer park, and the high guy used comps from two neighborhoods less than a mile away full of high end custom homes, neither of which are good comps for our neighborhood.

The main point is you don't want to pay more for the house than it would take to sell it in a reasonable amount of time...getting a feel for how much and how quickly that happens in your area is key, and not just some number your appraiser pulls out of his ass.

Right and this is my issue...The area I live is surrounded by a big apartment complex, a horse farm, and a cookie cutter neighborhood. My neighborhood is an older established one with only 2-3 home sales in the past couple of years. Ohhhh what to do. I did find that the price he is asking is well below the "comps" I found(again only 2-3 other houses) and he is taking into account not using a realtor.

[boocake]

Zillow is often wrong? CRAP! It says my house is worth 2.5 million (yes it really says that) even though I paid less than 200k 2 years ago. I was really counting on that money..............