Originally Posted by Boomer (Post 1975255)

Hey! Ya talkin’ tuh ME!?

Not that I owe you, or the horse you rode in on, any explanation, but in case it is MY “point” that has you befuddled, I will answer. . .

I absolutely love to talk about real estate markets. I have FSBO’d several times and used agents other times.

Decades ago, I got a license and went through in-house training with the biggest broker in my home city. Played around in it, a little, but did not quit my day job — never intended to.

In those days, we could not afford to maintain the Ohio license and all the associated expenses for what was pretty much just a hobby for me — and full-time had never been considered. Kept my day job for 35 years. No regrets. But everything I learned from spending my “15 minutes” as an agent was valuable — still is.

I hope this thread turns into the sharing of experiences with buying and selling our homes. (That is called “conversation” — OK w/ you?)

Boomer

Addendum: I just looked back after posting this and it looks like I might have picked up another heckler with a “what’s your point” post. Geez. . .So — Queenie whoever — please see above — in case you’re talkin’ to me.)

Originally Posted by jmaccallum (Post 1975288)

To dispel some myths...

Property Value and Property Price are two different things.

Value of a Property - is established by 1. a realtor, or appraiser, using past sales of similar properties, in other words historic data - the past look. 2. by market competition as in similar properties for sale now, the current look. 3. market trend as in have prices been rising or lowering over time, the future look. Property Value is a refined pie-in-the-sky sort of number. It is also perceived differently as in “I wouldn’t buy that piece of junk of a house for $250,000.” OR “Man, at $250,000 that house is a deal! I can do some updates and it would be worth $320,000!”

Typically how we want to Value our homes is $100,000 to the tax assessor, $300,000 to our friends, and $500,000 when we want to sell it. On the other hand...

Property Price - is determined when a property actually sells, defined as what a seller agrees to take and a buyer agrees to give. That’s the hard and real number.

Property Value fluctuates all the time due to innumerable factors. Just one example, when mortgage rates are low, buyers have more buying power, more home sales, prices trend up. When mortgage rates climb, buyers lose buying power and the opposite occurs. Remember, the interest rate is the “price” of money. All sorts of factors come in to play and change all the time. Something as simple as, “It used to be such a nice area, but the traffic is so bad now!” affect Property Value. Hence, in the industry we say “An appraisal is good for only one day.”

Another misunderstanding relates to refinancing. Mortgage companies are a lot less discriminating on Refi appraisals. It not the same as a new buyer. You are already in the home and have been making payments for some time. You a have a good payment history. Lenders see this type of financing as less risky. Don’t confuse the Refi appraisal as an indication of sales price, it’s not. The Refi lender could care less what type of counter tops you have or if your fixtures are still antique brass! A buyer will though.

Another myth is that there is a national MLS. There isn’t. The Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is a service created by the NAR, National Association of Realtors. The NAR is made up of many local associations usually determined by city or counties or whatever geographical area, each with its own MLS system. Only a licensed real estate agent can join the NAR through their local entity and thereby use that MLS. In doing so, they become a REALTOR. You’ve seen that word thrown around. That’s all it means They can access the MLS, you can’t. But that too has been changing. I’ll explain...

The NAR collects listing and sales data from all the local MLS’s around the country and assimilates the information. Nearly all economic data on the real estate industry comes from the NAR. When you see info in the news it is typically quoted from the NAR.

Realtor.com is the NAR. So, information you see on that website is coming directly from all the local MLS’s. It is information entered by each individual real estate agent as they list and sell properties. It’s usually very accurate because agents have to follow very stringent rules when entering info. If not, they can lose their license.

Now as I said before, only licensed agents that belong to the NAR (REALTORS remember?) can access the MLS and you can not. That is still true. However, with the advent of internet property searching by potential buyers and real estate companies setting up resulting websites, the NAR at the demand of real estate companies came up with a way that you, the buyer or seller, could see some, not all, of the MLS info. They allowed agents to “link” some of the info in local MLS’s to their websites. Of course it cost agents $$$’s to do but it allowed you to now search for properties on that agents website directly from their local MLS, updated pretty much instantaneously.

Now comes the fun part... One day some techno people looked at this and said, Hmm we can do that on our own, and maybe do it better, and offer people the property searches (from different sources) AND include other info real estate agents use such as tax records, sales history from the county clerk, school performance and lots of other stuff people might want to know about a property. We can even do a basic Property Valuation maybe. So came Zillow and Trulia (at least they were the most successful)... Then Zillow bought Trullia, you know to get rid of competition. Like Facebook and Instagram, true to the tech world. And Zillow has grown.

Zillow is a good source of some information, but it must be taken with a grain of salt. Zillow is free to buyers and sellers, because on Zillow, you are not their customer, you are their product. They sell you to real estate agents. That’s how Zillow makes their money, mainly by advertising real estate agents. They make it from mortgage lenders, and other advertisers, too. Zillow is another way real estate agents say, “Pick me! Pick me!” It’s just like newspaper ads, yard signs, and billboards. Just with more juicy information :)

And the real estate agent myth... We use financial advisors to help us through these golden years, we see doctors for our ailments, we use CPA’s to do our taxes, lawyers to do our wills, so when you are looking to buy or sell one of our biggest investments, go see a professional. First, definitely shop them, like you do the other professions . Get a good one and they will get you the most current and relevant info, guide you through the process you know little about, protect you from the pitfalls of required representations and disclosures, and get you highest & best net proceeds which is really all you care about.

There will always be for-sale-by-owners, there will always be day-traders, and there will always be a gazillion golfers, but very very few, and probably not you nor I, will be successful pros at any of those.

Originally Posted by patfla06 (Post 1975378)

Zillow has not caught up with the real prices in The Villages yet.

My Son has a house in Coral Gables and they just caught up with the crazy prices there recently.

I guess it takes time to adjust to the craziness going on now.

Originally Posted by rjm1cc (Post 1975338)

When purchased new in a 55 community they undervalued what I paid for it. Seems like they missed all the upgrades. Then when solar and a whole house generator was added they missed that. Point is it is just a ball park number that could be misleading.

Originally Posted by Boomer (Post 1975346)

Thank you for taking the time to write detailed info. I learned some things. :)

FSBOing can be nuanced. Not everybody should try to FSBO. We have sold houses both ways. But that was more dependent on the house than the market. At the height of the last market, we downsized in Ohio from a big house that had a lot of extra stuff. That meant the market was narrowed due to the price range.

We did not want to mess with the Lookie-Loo crowd. We wanted potential buyers to be qualified — which we made clear at the listing. The house sold fast because there was a buyer with another agent in the same office who had been looking for 2 years — for exactly what we had. The house sold for an excellent price before it even hit the MLS. I do not think we ever would have found that buyer as a FSBO.

But, if we were to be selling in TV right now, we would FSBO. If we were to be selling our Ohio downsize right now, we would (probably) FSBO — by starting with just the word out to the neighbors. But we are not selling now.

Not just any agent will do. I found ours by going to open houses. (I have always heard that open houses are for the agent to meet buyers and that open houses usually do not sell the house. That might not be as true in TV where the market moves almost constantly.)

I have nice manners (usually) so I did not monopolize an agent in an open house if they had “live ones” there. But, when I had observed enough to be interested in possibly listing, I waited for a lull and then I conducted what was basically an interview. That is how I found our agent.

I just read that there are 8 agents for every listing in the country now. I thought that number sounded off because it seemed low.

I see entering a listing contract as going into business with that agent — as partners. If listing, it pays to be choose the agent carefully. Using a friend’s nephew’s kid can leave too much to chance and to hassles. Using somebody you know really well can, in some cases, get them too much in your business.

There are some really lazy license-holders out there. And there are those who work their tails off — especially when they end up having to carry all the work for a lazy agent that is on the other side of the deal — but gets their commission anyway.

Choosing an agent should be like choosing any professional.

Boomer

Originally Posted by jmaccallum (Post 1975503)

Maybe a thread should be started to discuss these recent events and what everyone thinks might be a prudent financial course for the near future. r would that be of no interest on this forum?

Originally Posted by snsaneholtz@gmail.com (Post 1975542)

How do you remove your house information from the Zillow site?
Previous owner posted our home and now we would like to have it removed.

Originally Posted by snsaneholtz@gmail.com (Post 1975542)

How do you remove your house information from the Zillow site?
Previous owner posted our home and now we would like to have it removed.

Originally Posted by snsaneholtz@gmail.com (Post 1975542)

How do you remove your house information from the Zillow site?
Previous owner posted our home and now we would like to have it removed.

Originally Posted by Boomer (Post 1974957)

We are not buying or selling in either place right now, but I have been fascinated by real estate markets for most of my adult life. Just when I thought I had seen it all — along comes the current insanity.

While I agree with those who say this overall market is different from the big, popped bubble, that does not mean that I think it is sustainable. At some point, buyers will get tired of feeling had and the US market will breathe. (I hope banks do not start handing out HELOCs based on what could turn out to be phantom equity.)

(But TV’s market is different. Potential buyers might feel like they are caught between The Village of Rock and The Village of Hard Place where the buy price is concerned. But no matter what that famous philosopher Mick Jagger told us, a long time ago, time is not on our side — anymore. And, besides, in most cases, the house owned elsewhere is going to sell overpriced. TV marketing knows all this, of course.)

But back to the overall US market. . .

I just now looked at Zillow and at realtor.com to see what their algorithms “think” about what houses we own, and have owned, are worth. On the northern house, both seemed unrealistically high.

How realistic can those sites possibly be? There is no human element involved in the pricing? Are those sites just a starting or stopping point? Are they just pie in the sky? Are they just as often too low on their estimations?

Boomer. . .

(Btw, it is a little weird to look at realtor.com because they do not appear to remove the old pictures from the last time the house was sold. So if you think you miss your old furniture, you might be able to visit it on realtor.com if you listed with the MLS.)

Originally Posted by Boomer (Post 1974957)

We are not buying or selling in either place right now, but I have been fascinated by real estate markets for most of my adult life. Just when I thought I had seen it all — along comes the current insanity.

While I agree with those who say this overall market is different from the big, popped bubble, that does not mean that I think it is sustainable. At some point, buyers will get tired of feeling had and the US market will breathe. (I hope banks do not start handing out HELOCs based on what could turn out to be phantom equity.)

(But TV’s market is different. Potential buyers might feel like they are caught between The Village of Rock and The Village of Hard Place where the buy price is concerned. But no matter what that famous philosopher Mick Jagger told us, a long time ago, time is not on our side — anymore. And, besides, in most cases, the house owned elsewhere is going to sell overpriced. TV marketing knows all this, of course.)

But back to the overall US market. . .

I just now looked at Zillow and at realtor.com to see what their algorithms “think” about what houses we own, and have owned, are worth. On the northern house, both seemed unrealistically high.

How realistic can those sites possibly be? There is no human element involved in the pricing? Are those sites just a starting or stopping point? Are they just pie in the sky? Are they just as often too low on their estimations?

Boomer. . .

(Btw, it is a little weird to look at realtor.com because they do not appear to remove the old pictures from the last time the house was sold. So if you think you miss your old furniture, you might be able to visit it on realtor.com if you listed with the MLS.)

Originally Posted by Boomer (Post 1974957)

Boomer. . .
(Btw, it is a little weird to look at realtor.com because they do not appear to remove the old pictures from the last time the house was sold. .)

Originally Posted by APovi (Post 1975821)

[/I]

'Old Photos'? Is it because MLS/Appraisal shows the appearance/condition/appeal of the subject at the time of that (prior) sale? Same goes for the 'comps' used in the appraisal (which the appraiser (usually) did not inspect (Discounting a 'drive-by').