I'm Listing My House for Sale on Tuesday (Phoenix, Scottsdale: real estate market, insurance)

[musicforme]

I've had a thread here and there over the last several months as my wife and I got ready to sell our house.

I thought I'd start a new thread with everything we've done over the past week getting it ready, and make updates as we go through the process of a conventional sale in today's real estate market.

A little history about my house is it is located in Tramonto, near I-17 and Carefree Highway. It is a two story house, 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath, 2 car garage, but more on that in a second.

We bought our house in Summer 2009 when we moved here from Dallas. We initially offered $295k on it and the appraisal came back to $250k. The investor who was flipping the house agreed to sell it to us at $250k.

The house was on the MLS at 3,700 sq ft, but our appraisal came back at 3,900 sq ft. Maricopa County thinks my house is 3,700 sq ft and has a three car garage which explains the difference in 200 sq ft.

In the past week, we've had our house "deep cleaned" by a cleaning crew, carpets cleaned by Zerorez (which did an amazing job), and a fresh appraisal this past Friday. The appraisal came back at $250k and at 3,900 sq ft. We're going to list the house at $249,900.

We had a professional photographer out at the house yesterday and the house should be up on MLS on Tuesday.

I'll update this thread with how things go for those that are curious how conventional sales are going in today's market.

[azdr0710]

sounds like this could be a great thread....thanks for the idea....

if the appraisal came in at $250K again, why not ask about $265K and try to get the $250K for a selling price??.....or did the realtor suggest that asking price?.....did you check very recent comps on similar houses in the same development?.....

[khuntrevor]

I would expect to get a lot more than used carpet for a quarter million in Phoenix....What did the flipper pay?

[musicforme]

Originally Posted by azdr0710

sounds like this could be a great thread....thanks for the idea....

if the appraisal came in at $250K again, why not ask about $265K and try to get the $250K for a selling price??.....or did the realtor suggest that asking price?.....did you check very recent comps on similar houses in the same development?.....

I at first suggested a $260k list price, but our Realtor pointed out that anyone that put $250k as the top end of their search would never see our house. Our Realtor is also going to mention in the private MLS remarks that we have a recent appraisal to back up the $249k list price and is available for review upon request.

We're more interested in selling the house quickly so we can close it and start looking for our next house. From my research, a lot of REO houses for sale don't allow for contingencies, so we need to have our down payment in the bank before we can make a "strong" offer on the types of houses we're looking at ($350k range in Grayhawk).

The appraiser did a full-blown appraisal as if he was doing it for a bank. The appraisal itself was around 17 pages in total and extremely informative. I think he had around 9 comps in total, but had to expand the search area because of a lack of recent comps in my immediate area.

[musicforme]

Originally Posted by khuntrevor

I would expect to get a lot more than used carpet for a quarter million in Phoenix....What did the flipper pay?

Flipper paid $182k, but it was trashed when he bought it. The appraisal has the rebuild cost at $419k. One of our neighbors told us stories about kitchen appliances being dragged out into the backyard and destroyed. I'm still finding small pieces of plastic in the landscape rocks from time to time.

The flipper totally gutted the kitchen, added new cabinets, added slab granite countertops, added slab granite in both master bathrooms (house has two master bedrooms).

[khuntrevor]

If he is not a certified appraiser; it doesn't mean much......Your insurance agent will be more than happy to give you rebuild cost---meaningless as a seller (unless you need to know homes are selling for half of replacement costs).

You might as well tell us what Zillow says.

[Jkgourmet]

Why are you selling this house? It doesn't sound like you are leaving the area, but if I read the numbers correctly, you surely are selling at a loss from what you paid in 2009 - so why?

[khuntrevor]

Will you have to pay back a tax credit?

[musicforme]

Originally Posted by khuntrevor

If he is not a certified appraiser; it doesn't mean much......Your insurance agent will be more than happy to give you rebuild cost---meaningless as a seller (unless you need to know homes are selling for half of replacement costs).

You might as well tell us what Zillow says.

He is a certified appraiser and does a lot of work for banks. We were lucky to catch him on a "slow" day and he came out on short notice and quickly got the report back to us since he knew we needed the appraisal amount to help determine the listing price.

Zillow says $250,700 but has the incorrect square footage per the county records. I need to contact the county and see how to get this adjusted.

Originally Posted by Jkgourmet

Why are you selling this house? It doesn't sound like you are leaving the area, but if I read the numbers correctly, you surely are selling at a loss from what you paid in 2009 - so why?

My commute to/from work right now is about 45 minutes each way. Also, my in-laws who my wife visits a couple times a week and my three kids have their doctor offices near where I work too. Basically everything we do is in North Scottsdale, so it makes better sense for us to live on this side of town.

If we sell the house at the list price of $249k, then that would be "only" a $1k loss, not counting the Realtor commission. Since we're buying and selling in relatively the same housing market, I'm not too concerned about "losing" money since the kinds of houses we're looking at were out of our price range two years ago.

Originally Posted by khuntrevor

Will you have to pay back a tax credit?

Good question. The tax credit didn't exist until a month or two after we bought our house. The only tax breaks we've claimed were for the mortgage interest deduction.

[Stokes172]

Good luck. Tromonto is a great family neighborhood a little birdy told me.

There are very few good houses for sale in that area. 85 bucks a sq ft is a decent price for the neighborhood but if your house is immaculate (turn-key) I'm sure it will get some quick activity.

DM the listing...I have a family member who might be interested.