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I know it doesn't give you the whole picutre, but I like to check the Wake County Real Estate Records when a homes sells in my community to keep a track on price trends. Recently a home in my neighborhood sold and closed. The Wake County Records Reflect the Sale in that it shows a Change to the Deed and has the new owners name listed on the account, but the "Package Sale" price has not been updated. It still shows the Package Sale Price and the date of closing for the previous owners back in 2001. Does anybody know why the sale price would not be updated for what the current owner paid?
If it is a recent transaction, sometimes the different facts are updated independently form each other.
Don't ask me why...
Why mike? Just kidding! That is strange that the county updates it piecemeal like that. I guess I will check the records again in a week or so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeJaquish
And if it is a foreclosure, sometimes the transaction is recorded without a price, apparently.
I'm glad you mentioned that becasue that is something that has puzzled me for some time. The previous owner of my house bought it as a foreclosure. I remember when we checked the records back before we purchased it I wondered why the purchase price he paid was not recorded. I have noticed this many times with other properties that are foreclosures. I am really curious about the reasoning for why foreclosures are recorded differently than otehr sales.
FWIW, I love to check the tax records for trends in my neighborhood, but as I mentioned earlier I know that Agents are the only ones who can pull "true" comps. The Package sale price listed on the wake county website for my home does show what I paid, but it does not reflect several thousand of dollars of concessions from the seller that he paid towards closing costs, home warranty ect..... All of which are things that are useful to know when developing an offer. I just do it for fun, but don't put too much weight in the numbers I see.
NRG,
Actually, sometimes the county just misses the price entirely. You can find properties which have sold, and the price in the tax rolls is from the previous transaction. No foreclosure, just data wasn't entered.
Messes up comparing properties when people don't know to press further and get the whole story.
I must add..... That is why zillow.com and other internet listing sites are bad because they use county information which is wrong a lot % of the time.....MLS has the trend information you would need.
Not all foreclosures are exempt from displaying the sales price. I think it really only applies to govt. foreclosures from folks that got an FHA loan. The govt. does not have to pay the revenue or sales tax when it sells a property (imagine that!). So it does not get recorded with the price.
If you look at the wake county side & see a revenue stamp #, multiple that by 500 & that will give you the price that was paid.
Not all foreclosures are exempt from displaying the sales price. I think it really only applies to govt. foreclosures from folks that got an FHA loan. The govt. does not have to pay the revenue or sales tax when it sells a property (imagine that!). So it does not get recorded with the price.
If you look at the wake county side & see a revenue stamp #, multiple that by 500 & that will give you the price that was paid.
Thank you so much for the tip SaraB. It just so happens the house I was curious about does have the updated tax stamp info posted so I was able to calculate the sales price using the 500 multiplier like you suggested. I did a similar calculation on my house and the result was 100% on target.
I am happy to see that my neighbor sold at 100% of her revised asking price. The house was originally listed a tad too high if you compared it to recent comps and was eventually reduced after a month on the market, but even so the eventual sale price was 98% of the original list price.
Looks like the 98% rule of thumb in my area proves accurate once again!
I still think it is very odd that certain types of foreclosure sales sometimes don't have the sale price listed.
If you look at the wake county side & see a revenue stamp #, multiple that by 500 & that will give you the price that was paid.
I did that by accident once and I was like whoa..."didn't even know that". It's a good thing to know, since you can go back and see what each owner paid for the house, if there were several owners listed.
Ok, I have one follow-up question about the package sale price listed on the Wake County Website. A house down the street from me just sold in under 7 days. The Tax records have just been updated to reflect the recent sale and I noticed the package sale price is $2K more than what the house was listed at. I doubt this house got into some kind of a bidding war, could it be that the buyer needed help with closing costs and instead of getting help from the seller instead applied for a mortgage that was 2K more than the purchase price of the house with the idea of using this additional $2K to cover the closing costs?
I know I am a nosey SOB, but I love keeping track of what homes are going for in my neighborhood. I am Thrilled to see that the last three homes that sold all receiveved 98%-100% of their asking price and that they sold for more than I thought they would and they are owner occupied and not being rented out. My hope is that as the prices increase in my neighborhood more and more of the rentals will switch over to owner occupied becasue the price point will become less appealing to investors. Maybe it is wishful thinking, but so far so good!
NRG - the million dollar question is whether they got 98% of their *original* asking price. I've noticed that these types of calculations tend to be based on the LAST price listed before it went under contract. That's hardly an accurate statement if it "sat" on the market for a year and over that year dropped 50K BEFORE the final offer was within 2% of that asking price.
Since I have been watching several houses while waiting for my own to sell - I have noticed that many houses play that "on the market"/"off the market" game, with the prices dropping while they're off the market. Not that I don't understand why people do that (I've done it myself) - it just invalidates all of those statistics (time on market, price sold versus price sought, etc...).
Bottom line is - unless you actually track them from day 1 when they listed THE FIRST TIME until the day they actually sold - I don't think you'll get an accurate picture of that number.
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