How to find the actual house price (West: for sale, how much)

[Joe0109]

I have been looking at houses in Steiner ranch area but wanted to know how to find actual house price. For the new homes, the builder has asking price but as I understand it the actual price may be quite lower compared to the asking price. I have been going to Travis county website, looking for appraisals. But I am not sure if this is the way to get the actual baseline price (price/square feet) within a community. I am hoping that based on this information, I can establish house price for new home. Does that make sense?

[austinnerd]

There is no such thing as an "actual price" akin to an "dealers price" with cars. Sounds like you want to get some comps of other homes sold in that area. In that case you should contact a realtor, they'd be happy to run some for you to get a better feel for how the asking price fits in with recent home sales. Remember that lots of things factor into the price, you can have two identical floor plans but radically different prices depending on finish out (e.g. one place has carpet the other one wood flooring, one has laminate counters the other granite, etc, etc).

[FalconheadWest]

Texas is a non-disclosure state so you're not going to find what you're looking for unless you contact someone holding the information like a Realtor with access to the MLS... but even that only gets you so far because many of the builder homes are not listed in the MLS.

[trayanh]

now I know the reason why I couldn't find the sold price from websites like redfin. It is very inconvenient. When you want to get a comps from a realtor, make sure you sit with her/him and they don't insert any fishy criteria to make the comps list look nice.

Originally Posted by FalconheadWest

Texas is a non-disclosure state so you're not going to find what you're looking for unless you contact someone holding the information like a Realtor with access to the MLS... but even that only gets you so far because many of the builder homes are not listed in the MLS.

[Exiled Texan]

Do what I do, get to know the new owner. Say things like, "I love your new house. I'm just not sure I could afford one."

My kids also went to school in the zone I was looking so I usually knew someone who lived either next door or a few doors down who could ask those questions.

[Joe0109]

With current house and my other friend's house the appraisal value from Travis county has been higher then what I paid for. So is it not safe to say that the house price in the community should not be higher then its appraisals. The appraisal site gives a lot of good detailed information about the house - nbed rooms, square foot, Land price etc. It also shows land price of the new home of interest.

I understand that every house is different but it seems that these days flooring and Granite countertop may have lot of commonalty among various houses in the community. Usually they have carpet in all bedrooms and upstairs rest ifs tile or wood.

[ROY DUBOSE]

Originally Posted by trayanh

now I know the reason why I couldn't find the sold price from websites like redfin. It is very inconvenient. When you want to get a comps from a realtor, make sure you sit with her/him and they don't insert any fishy criteria to make the comps list look nice.

sales detail is not a public record to my knowledge -- if buying, why do you believe a buyer's agent would want to lie or mislead a client?

[austinnerd]

Originally Posted by Joe0109

With current house and my other friend's house the appraisal value from Travis county has been higher then what I paid for. So is it not safe to say that the house price in the community should not be higher then its appraisals. The appraisal site gives a lot of good detailed information about the house - nbed rooms, square foot, Land price etc. It also shows land price of the new home of interest.

I understand that every house is different but it seems that these days flooring and Granite countertop may have lot of commonalty among various houses in the community. Usually they have carpet in all bedrooms and upstairs rest ifs tile or wood.

True, that's why the tax appraisal is not a good reference to go by. Like I said, the only reliable way to get good meaningful information is through a realtor (or an appraiser).

[jobert]

Originally Posted by austinnerd

True, that's why the tax appraisal is not a good reference to go by. Like I said, the only reliable way to get good meaningful information is through a realtor (or an appraiser).

Exactly. The appraisal just says how much the taxman thinks he can take from you. I have seen this happen with the 2010 appraisals...neighborhoods sell for $100/sf avg, but received an avg appraisal of $90/sf. I have seen the opposite happen: neighborhoods that sell for $85-90/sf, but appraise at $100-110/sf. This leads me to believe that TravisCAD doesn't look for sales information when assigning tax burden.

[Joe0109]

The thing is that the builder's "bottom line" pricing is higher then majority of the appriasals in the community. The houses are comparable in size to the new house if interest. So does it not mean that the "bottom line" price should be atelast lower then comparables apprasals in the area?