huge disparity in neighborhood prices in north county, did realtor fail?

[AndroidAZ]

Originally Posted by psychmd

I was able to find both listings based on your description, and to my (admittedly amateur) eyes I don't see a case of your brother being ripped off in either the house he bought nor the one he is selling. There are comps for both houses in the range of what he paid and sold for. It may be a combination of:

Slightly more desirable area
More desirable single floor ranch vs two story
Larger lot with more usable outdoor space (from the photos anyway)
More integration between indoor and outdoor space
View of golf course and mountains vs view of roofs and mountains
Hard to tell from photos, but I suspect floorplan of their new house may use the available sq footage better

In sum, the things that can't be changed (or are difficult to change) about either house tend to favor their new house.

Their realtor probably didn't get them the lowest price possible on their new house or the highest price possible on their old house, but just based on what I see from each house individually I don't see a glaring problem with what they paid or received. I do see how it would make you scratch your head when you are looking at the price per sqft as well as the updates they did to the kitchen and master bath though. One thing the realtor maybe could have done better would be to be more aware of (or if she was aware of it, more communicative of) whether the markets for RP and RB were hotter than usual or if the relative prices were normal for the two areas.

Thanks for the feedback, appreciate it!!

[JohnSoCal]

Rancho Bernardo is a much more expensive area than Rancho Peñasquitos. Real Estate is location, location, location.