Selling house and I have questions about price. (sale, 2013)

[pslhomie]

And you found the place yourself. Same thing happened to us. We used ReMax also at first and the agent wouldn't return my calls when we didn't make an offer on the house he wanted us to buy. It was some idiot and his wife. The next agent was good and did us right but we still found the house we bought.

We had a very good idea of exactly what we wanted and we found it. The house had never been lived in so it was even better. You have to do your homework.

[JimT7406]

The $299k sale is not an indicator of value. A private mortgage and a 6.25% mortgage are 2 good reasons why. The mortgage holder is a private company that buys and renovates homes in St Lucie County and advertises that way. Maybe they did it here, but rest assured that there is no renovation that could have been done to get that price. When you have a private mtg, there are no normal checks and balances including an appraisal. When someone wants to pay 6.25% to borrow money then you can figure they most likely have a credit issue. Why would the PA record the number, remember if I wanted to buy your home for $300k cash even though I could buy the same home next door for $150k there is no law against it. Not a good decision but you can do it and the PA would record the $300k sale. These are deals that fall outside of the normal range and thus would not be a reliable indicator of market value.
Regarding your comment of getting off track. It is both a great time to buy and sell. Plenty of buyers with a dwindling inventory. Although prices are inching up they are still very low. For your purposes it is likely not a good time to sell as values are much lower then at the height of the market when you bought your property. I think that values in St Lucie County will lag way behind for an extended time frame with no real hope of coming back. Further, areas like Tradition, SLW etc. will come back faster than homes on city streets, especially when you start going over $200k.
Agents are like everything else, there are good and bad. There is a sellers market now on agressively priced properties and you need an agent who knows that and is ready to act fast on your behalf. Bidding above the list price is becoming the norm on low listed prices with many noting they want the highest and best price by a specific date. It cost you nothing but time to use an agent when buying so I would always use one but I would also do my homework and be looking like PortStLucie water did. By the way, I am not an agent.

[FlaLadyB]

PortStLucieWater......you bought a house that used to be a marijuana grow house?

And... you found this by yourself... on MLS...which means it had a Realtor.

[PortStLucieWater]

The house did have a realtor. There is no question about that and I never said it did not. I said that I myself did not use a realtor.

[pslhomie]

I would be carefull living in that house. Someone I know in Miami has had their house shot at several times because the previous owners were drug dealers who thought they were still there. The house is in a very nice quiet neighborhood. Also I hope you had the inspection to make sure all of the permits were done for the changes to the house. If not when you sell you might have a problem. Good job though.

[annerk]

Originally Posted by pslhomie

Recently we decided to put our 2450sqft 4 1/2 year old home up for sale. All we want to recover is what we put into the house (not trying to make a proffit)

This is your first mistake. You bought higher than the market is valued right now. You will get for the house what the market will bear, how much you paid for it or put into it has no bearing on the price at all.

Most people want to buy a turn-key home, anything that will need work will be valued considerably lower.

[PortStLucieWater]

First -- almost all of the drug violence in Miami is because of cocaine-- not cannabis. Cocaine dealers are well known to have very LARGE amounts of cash around them at all times. The same can not be said for cannabis dealers.

Second -- The problem is that in Miami there aren't really any "nice quiet neighborhoods". (Unless we are talking about Coral Gables) I lived in Miami for 22 years. I lived all over. Kendall, South Miami, Downtown, Little Havana, Aventura, North Miami Beach. The last area I was living in Miami was Little Havana and I lived there for 4 years. I know Miami VERY well.

Sure -- there are "quiet streets" but go 1 or 2 blocks over and you are in the hood.

Also the activities in question happened several years ago and the house was abandoned for almost 3 years.

Yes we had a full thorough inspection completed by an ASHI inspector. I also chose the inspector myself and he resided in Martin County. I also pulled the permits myself using the cities website. All permits are available online for your inspection.

[pslhomie]

Well I know many "Grow Houses" have been found in nice quiet neighborhoods in Miami along Old Cuttler. It's ok thouh because the smart meters are doing these people in. Someone I know had an investment home and the tenants paid every month on time. One time they missed and after a week she went over to check and found out that they had turned her house into a grow house and gutted the place. The police never attempted to contact her after they kicked in the door. The insurance company refused to cover the damages and she lost the place in foreclosure. This house was in the middle of homes that go for upwards of 1 million dollars. Not exactly the hood. And the place my friend lives in is a gated community so you can see how safe those places are.

[thebigW]

Originally Posted by JimT7406

The $299k sale is not an indicator of value. A private mortgage and a 6.25% mortgage are 2 good reasons why. The mortgage holder is a private company that buys and renovates homes in St Lucie County and advertises that way. Maybe they did it here, but rest assured that there is no renovation that could have been done to get that price. When you have a private mtg, there are no normal checks and balances including an appraisal. When someone wants to pay 6.25% to borrow money then you can figure they most likely have a credit issue. Why would the PA record the number, remember if I wanted to buy your home for $300k cash even though I could buy the same home next door for $150k there is no law against it. Not a good decision but you can do it and the PA would record the $300k sale. These are deals that fall outside of the normal range and thus would not be a reliable indicator of market value.
Regarding your comment of getting off track. It is both a great time to buy and sell. Plenty of buyers with a dwindling inventory. Although prices are inching up they are still very low. For your purposes it is likely not a good time to sell as values are much lower then at the height of the market when you bought your property. I think that values in St Lucie County will lag way behind for an extended time frame with no real hope of coming back. Further, areas like Tradition, SLW etc. will come back faster than homes on city streets, especially when you start going over $200k.
Agents are like everything else, there are good and bad. There is a sellers market now on agressively priced properties and you need an agent who knows that and is ready to act fast on your behalf. Bidding above the list price is becoming the norm on low listed prices with many noting they want the highest and best price by a specific date. It cost you nothing but time to use an agent when buying so I would always use one but I would also do my homework and be looking like PortStLucie water did. By the way, I am not an agent.

This is very true.

Also, it's very possible that the $290k wasn't the actual sales price. The sales price is determined by the amount of doc stamps that were paid for when the deed is recorded. It is easy and very common to buy extra stamps (for a few hundred dollars) to inflate the recorded sales price. This can be done to help artificially raise prices in the area. If the seller has other properties in the area, he is setting the stage for higher prices on future sales. The buyer could be doing it to establish a tax basis for an investment property. Or, it isn't an actual buyer, just a friend, employee, owner, etc and just a recorded sale to boost prices.

[pslhomie]

Now why would anyone do this. That sounds highly illegal and stupid from a tax point of view and how would that help them anyway? I would rather sell my house for a dollar on paper and collect the rest under the table. That is illegal too.