Pricing home for sale - agents and assessors please help (Madison: 2013, HOA)

[lhall85917]

Originally Posted by RegaeBusRider

Be careful with Zillow. Past sales price is accurate but Zestimates are often way off.

We are definitely avoiding their value for our home, their value is at least $150,000 under true value. Yikes. If I go by it, we will have lost $155,000 in just three years.

[CoreLysium]

The Zestimate for my house is about $30k too low. It would be nice to get it for that much, but it's a totally unrealistic price.

[lindy112]

Originally Posted by bmrisko

I think the main issue hurting you is that they are still actively building in BFC and several builders have lowered their price points in there to try and get the lots sold and move on. That seems to be a common "issue" in a lot of neighborhoods in the area.

This ... Remember you're going to be competing with new construction. You'll need to be priced lower than the new houses and/or have better amenities to be able to compete. What will make someone pick your house instead of a brand-new house in the same neighborhood?

[lhall85917]

Originally Posted by lindy112

This ... Remember you're going to be competing with new construction. You'll need to be priced lower than the new houses and/or have better amenities to be able to compete. What will make someone pick your house instead of a brand-new house in the same neighborhood?

I totally agree. We will be priced slightly higher than the Breland homes and I don't have a problem with that but lower than the Pearson homes that are bigger and have an extra garage bay. This may be wrong and time will tell, but I believe it is justified based on curb appeal, additional landscaping, built-ins, trim package, high and trey ceilings, transom and elliptical windows, and the list goes on.
This discussion really helps and it does tell me that we can't just go by price per square foot as one person has led us to believe we need to do for the area. We have bought and sold many houses and this was the first time we were told that you need to primarily on price per square foot with some leeway for other factors. I think it is a consideration, but we need to look at the neighborhood as a whole, what else is for sale in here and nearby, as well as price per foot.

[HB2HSV]

Originally Posted by Maya Blue

I agree with you. However, whenever one talks to a realtor around here, all they ever talk about is $/sq ft.

That is when they want you to buy an over-priced house.

[LCTMadison]

We look at price per foot as one TOOL....its not the end all be all of real estate. There is a heavy focus on it because many BUYERS focus heavily on it. I'm sure there are agents that do as well, but again....that's not all there is to pricing a house. Having a pulse on the overall area market is also key. Knowing what is moving, what is not, what the competition is....etc. ALL that goes into pricing a property, as well as location, condition, inventory, etc etc.

What I will tell you about BFC is that IF you are lucky, you are at a break even point. If you did buy three years ago then that was about at the point BFC started seeing pricing go down as Jeff Benton had moved in selling at a much lower price than Ken's houses were. Are you in the Arbors? There has been a more significant decline in pricing there than in BFC (the larger homes) due to overall market saturation with new construction in that price range, as well as competing builders. Even the Brelands are moving rather slowly there. For many of the buyers I have worked with and looked at properties in there, it has been the tiny lots in there that have been the deciding factor....you can get larger lots in other neighborhoods.

FYI, you are about to get hit with even more competition in that price point, as Pearson, Breland, and Stoneridge all have new neighborhoods right in that area in the works. That will impact your resale even more as competition increases.

Ken McDaniel has a stellar reputation in the area. He is one builder that we do tout on a resale. You have that going for you....and I am assuming you are on a crawlspace which helps as well, most of the new construction is slab and some people prefer and will pay more for a crawlspace. Do you back to that vacant land? If so, that is going to be a big NEGATIVE which will affect your value as that property is so up in the air right now and most people will start asking questions, especially with the Walgreens there. That land has been hanging around as an issue for over 5 years now, and it won't be fully resolved until SOMETHING is built there.

***Piece of advice. Don't even bother with Trulia and Zillow right now. Those sites are so full of errors its ridiculous. Don't even get me started on ZESTIMATES. We have a 2900 sft house on there listed at 2200 sft with only 3 bedrooms, and it is a four. I have pulled up several active properties on Zillow recently that actually closed months ago. NALMLS has just entered into direct syndication agreements with these third party websites where we can better control the data and accuracy of it, so hopefully it will improve the sites and the data put out on them.

[lhall85917]

Thank you, all valid points and information. We bought when there were just about three or four Benton homes in the neighborhood. Since then Breland came in and now even Pearson is adding to the disappointment on our side. The new homes they are building in the arbors are being built at close to $300,000, our hope was that they might bring a higher value to our end but this won't be the case. I'm not sure if they are omitting some features that are in homes on the other side, they are slightly smaller but not much.

The one good thing going for us is that we are not on the Walgreens side of the street. We have invested and spent a lot of time on the exterior and interior of the house and have had many comments on how much people love the house. We don't expect to get what we paid for it out of it and that is disappointing based on the effort we have put into the house and our high expectations moving in. When we moved here we were also sold on the McDaniels quality then our end of the neighborhood completely turned around with the other builders that came in.

When all is said and done we believe we have a beautiful, high quality home in a fantastic neighborhood. Someone will probably end up with a bargain! I have enjoyed the input from all of you, thank you for taking the time to respond.

[HB2HSV]

Originally Posted by LCTMadison

***Piece of advice. Don't even bother with Trulia and Zillow right now. Those sites are so full of errors its ridiculous. Don't even get me started on ZESTIMATES. We have a 2900 sft house on there listed at 2200 sft with only 3 bedrooms, and it is a four. I have pulled up several active properties on Zillow recently that actually closed months ago. NALMLS has just entered into direct syndication agreements with these third party websites where we can better control the data and accuracy of it, so hopefully it will improve the sites and the data put out on them.

Yeah I notice the ZESTIMATE is way off for this area as well but I think that is because NALMLS refused to allow Zillow have the past sales history (recalled a similar thread several years back).

But nevertheless it is still a useful tool to get an idea of the homes on the market & what they are asking? ValleyMLS is also useful. Either way, as a seller/ buyer, educating yourself on what's the market like maybe your best weapon.

[Mountain Dweller]

Originally Posted by HB2HSV

Yeah I notice the ZESTIMATE is way off for this area as well but I think that is because NALMLS refused to allow Zillow have the past sales history (recalled a similar thread several years back).

But nevertheless it is still a useful tool to get an idea of the homes on the market & what they are asking? ValleyMLS is also useful. Either way, as a seller/ buyer, educating yourself on what's the market like maybe your best weapon.

Zillow is a very useful tool. The navigation is better than mls and I expect the data to get cleaned up soon to make it a premier site for buyers and sellers. As a real estate investor, I have high hopes for it and believe it will change the way we all buy real estate.

[LCTMadison]

Originally Posted by HB2HSV

Yeah I notice the ZESTIMATE is way off for this area as well but I think that is because NALMLS refused to allow Zillow have the past sales history (recalled a similar thread several years back).

But nevertheless it is still a useful tool to get an idea of the homes on the market & what they are asking? ValleyMLS is also useful. Either way, as a seller/ buyer, educating yourself on what's the market like maybe your best weapon.

If its on ValleyMLS, it is correct data. If its on Zillow/Trulia....well, right now that is not the case. Guess it depends on what qualifies as "useful" but for me a site full of errors is NOT useful to anyone. I'm constantly having to go on Trulia/Zillow to search for properties clients are finding, only to find that the listing has bad/incorrect data, or in many cases, has been SOLD for months. Eventually they see and stop using it. Its frustrating.

We also just entered into contract for a new MLS system....I can't WAIT, it is going to be SOOOO much better than the current system!!! The changes will also be with ValleyMLS as well, obviously. Everything about this new MLS platform is improved and much more user friendly and has some very cool features. IMO our current system is antiquated, especially when you see what some of these other companies are doing. Roll out should happen by next June or so.