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We are first time homebuyers who will soon begin looking for a house in Utah, a non-disclosure state. My wife and I are very analytic people, both working a lot with numbers and statistics in our jobs, and so we both are very interested in getting a better understanding of the market in the neighborhoods in which we are looking. Utah being a non-disclosure state makes this very difficult - knowing actual prices is necessary to analyze any kind of market.
My understanding is that agents have access, through the MLS, to data on the sales history of homes, which is what they draw upon to choose comps. Basically, sales data is proprietary to the real estate industry. My question is to what extent I can reasonably ask my agent to share relevant information with me, beyond a standard comparative market analysis once we get serious about a specific property. Would it be a ridiculous request (or even an illegal one?) if I asked her to send me the MLS information on the last 50 homes sold in a given price range across a few neighborhoods in Salt Lake City? Ultimately, we want to hire a good agent and let that person do their job in advising us about market value and comps, all without making undue and onerous requests. We do not want to be pain-in-the-ass clients. But we also want to do our due diligence to get a solid broader understanding of the market and valuation, perhaps before we even begin to see houses. And living in a non-disclosure state just makes that very difficult.
The MLS info generally contains a lot of information that you would not (and should not) be allowed to have - not just the names of owners but their contact info, maybe gate codes necessary for the agent to get their buyers into the property, and other information that, if you were in the sellers' shoes, you wouldn't want being passed out to just anyone. As for pricing information, I don't know about Utah, but Texas is a non-disclosure state, and that can be shared, but only with a client (not just some Joe Blow who wants to know or even the tax man, who doesn't have the right to know, either). So your agent couldn't just send you "the MLS info", but could share prices with you once you've hired them to represent you.
Don't know how it works in Utah, but that's how it works here.
You should be educated on values the more homes you see. It's dangerously bad to take data from a wide area and apply it to a specific neighborhood or home
Once you have a "Signed Buyers Representation " agreement with an agent they can provide you sales info on a particular area. Just be careful to not make uneducated general assumptions. There are reasons every house and every neighborhood sales for different prices.
That blows a lot of analytical minds.
A good buyers agent educates you to buy the best house you can for your money. They do not "Sell" houses, houses sell themselves.
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Statistical analysis is wonderful in many disciplines. In spite of what Zillow might think, Real Estate really isn't one of them.
My son-in-law just bought a car. He's a brilliant mathematician. He spent hours and hours crunching numbers and producing spreadsheets. He bought a Honda Civic. Knowing what he was looking for, I could have told him what he would end up with. (Just call me Obi Wan) In the end he was happy that his math worked out, but I'm not sure where he plugged in the car color.
Is it not possible to go to county records and look up tax records that will show when the home was last sold and for what price?
Not in a Non-Disclosure State like Utah or TX, that info is not open to the public. We continue to believe in our privacy and that others do not need to know what we paid for anything. Call us old fashioned.
Statistical analysis is wonderful in many disciplines. In spite of what Zillow might think, Real Estate really isn't one of them.
I agree with you. But I think there is a middle ground between trying to cook up a crazy complicated statistical model that is bound to fail like Zillow's (not what I'm interested in doing) and just accepting the very limited set of information my realtor gives me regarding market values and comps for a specific house because I have no other information about pricing.
I just want to know a little bit more about the local market than your average buyer seems to end up knowing in a non-disclosure state. I think most people who are used to buying in states where prices are public information would find it weird to be flying so blindly - or, more accurately, to be so reliant on your agent - in a non-disclosure context.
It's very easy to find out about the market in a non-disclosure state - at least, here. Information abounds! Your agent can show you statistical information on the specific area or areas you're looking in, from average and median, high and low prices to average days on market to how much inventory is available in that area (or in the city as a whole, but that would be pretty useless for a buyer's purposes unless the city as a whole was a pretty small town). Then, when you're narrowing down the search, they can zero in on sold homes that are more comparable to the one you're considering than the prior statistics do, and give you something much more accurate for making the serious decisions you're going to be making.
Here's a question, if you're used to a state where everybody gets to be in your business (cannot fathom why people put up with that, frankly). Do you just get the sold price, or do you also get to see how much of the buyer's closing costs the seller paid, how much was credited for repairs, whether or not repairs were made before closing (that's something that's not even really on the MLS but a savvy agent who's following houses on the market all the time can sometimes figure it out), whether a construction site was about to go in next door to the house at the time it was sold and that impacted the price, was the neighborhood still being built out at the time that comp was sold so that had an impact on the value of resales, did the seller run a cat rescue out of their house which impacted the sales price (not in the MLS, but if a house is not behaving in accordance with what would be expected for a house in that neighborhood in the market it sold in, a savvy agent will go looking for reasons why, be it the aforementioned cat rescue or a seller who makes it difficult to show (key with seller or listing agent must be present on the showing instructions is a big clue here, as is a house that's been through several agents without selling, that there's a problem seller), what are the normal seasonal fluctuations in your market over a period of years, etc., etc., etc.? That's just an example of the kind of information that your agent uses to come up with good comps and a good evaluation of the market. If all of that is not available to you in a state that is not a non-disclosure state, then you're still flying blind, you just don't know it because you have a false sense of knowing all you need to know based on a single figure, the sold price.
Last edited by TexasHorseLady; 03-31-2012 at 02:15 PM..
Reason: Edited for clarity.
If your Realtor represents you, as far as I am concerned, they have the responsibility to discover and share with you everything possible, including what would be improper for the listing agent to share. As far as I am concerned, it's only the responsibility of the listing agent to keep listing information confidential. It is your agent's (buyer's broker) job to keep your abilities and intentions confidential. That is not to say that your agent should not share that you are pre-qualified to purchase a home at the price you are offering. You may have the power to buy a million dollar home, but only interested in buying a $50,000 home.
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