How much is my house worth...looking to sell

[Kennywood]

Many years ago, a neighbor put their house up for sale. Nothing happened for months. Then the realtor tried something different. He upped the asking price by $20,000. The house sold in 2 weeks. It seems that people saw the original price and figured that there must be something wrong with the house.

 

[Cindy's Mom]

what ever someone is willing to pay.

 

[Darcy03231]

Like a PP we had a large house in a desirable area. I watched the market for a couple of year. We listed at $40k more than the highest comp a realtor gave us and we sold in less than 48 hours for 98% of list price.

Zillow currently shows our house with an estimate that's about $150k less than what we could get for it.

 

[barkley]

Zillow gets the sales data from your local government. Hope that doesn't comeback to cause you issues in the future if the government has the info wrong.

with the selling price error on my prior home it has to be something other than government records that caused it b/c if you look at the property tax field on zillow it shows the correct amount for basing the tax assessment (california so it would use the amount the purchaser paid) for that year (and subsequent years until those buyers defaulted and lost it) but under zillow's field for price history it shows the incorrect sales price.

 

[Searc]

Like a PP we had a large house in a desirable area. I watched the market for a couple of year. We listed at $40k more than the highest comp a realtor gave us and we sold in less than 48 hours for 98% of list price.

Zillow currently shows our house with an estimate that's about $150k less than what we could get for it.

You can only get for it what someone is willing to pay.

 

[Darcy03231]

You can only get for it what someone is willing to pay.

I agree, which is why you need to watch the market in your area and not just rely on a realtor. Their business is to sell homes quickly. The 6% commission on the $40k difference is $2400, possibly split between two realtors, but a $37,600 difference for me. In our situation the comps weren't in my neighborhood because nothing had come on the market in almost a year. They weren't even in the same school district for all of the schools, which also made a big difference.

For our current home, Zillow doesn't factor in that we live on a lake. Last lake property to sell recently was a 4 bedroom/1 bath, 1200 s.f., no garage and 80 feet of frontage. It went for $460,000 in less than a week. It was actually listed lower and there was a bidding war (we know the sellers). We have 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths, a garage with a 2nd story, 2,400 s.f. and 100 feet of frontage and Zillow has our "zestimate" at $338,000. Lake property in our area under $500,000 that isn't a seasonal camp is rare.

 

[Disneybuckeye]

For our current home, Zillow doesn't factor in that we live on a lake. Last lake property to sell recently was a 4 bedroom/1 bath, 1200 s.f., no garage and 80 feet of frontage. It went for $460,000 in less than a week. It was actually listed lower and there was a bidding war (we know the sellers). We have 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths, a garage with a 2nd story, 2,400 s.f. and 100 feet of frontage and Zillow has our "zestimate" at $338,000. Lake property in our area under $500,000 that isn't a seasonal camp is rare.

I do think Zillow is not very good at properties like you discuss above. At our lake lots of people (us included) bought dumps for the land and knocked down and rebuilt. That really skews Zillow values. The other issue is many houses on our lake have been in families for generations. This eliminates a lot of data points.

 

[OhMickeyUrSoFine]

So far, from what I see, Zillow has been the closest to accurate selling and market value (at least in my neck of the woods in Orlando). The bank estimate came in 10k over what I paid for it, however. Not sure if that's relevant or not.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I agree, which is why you need to watch the market in your area and not just rely on a realtor. Their business is to sell homes quickly. The 6% commission on the $40k difference is $2400, possibly split between two realtors, but a $37,600 difference for me. In our situation the comps weren't in my neighborhood because nothing had come on the market in almost a year. They weren't even in the same school district for all of the schools, which also made a big difference.

For our current home, Zillow doesn't factor in that we live on a lake. Last lake property to sell recently was a 4 bedroom/1 bath, 1200 s.f., no garage and 80 feet of frontage. It went for $460,000 in less than a week. It was actually listed lower and there was a bidding war (we know the sellers). We have 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths, a garage with a 2nd story, 2,400 s.f. and 100 feet of frontage and Zillow has our "zestimate" at $338,000. Lake property in our area under $500,000 that isn't a seasonal camp is rare.

Does your county include the lot in terms of desirability for their assessment value?

Ours does. My neighbor's house is valued a decent amount less than ours simply because our lot is considered 3 or 4 (can't remember) steps above his in terms of land site preference. Now for a buyer they may or may not see that. I mean he still has trees in his back yard just like us it's just we back up to green space on a portion of the lot. The thing that will change for him is he just installed a pool last spring. County assessment wise that will raise his value but selling point wise it can hurt his ability to get a higher amount.

 

[jliehr]

Zillow gets the sales data from your local government. Hope that doesn't comeback to cause you issues in the future if the government has the info wrong.

Not always, realtors in our area have successfully lobbied to keep that data private from the local government, so our Assessor mails out voluntary forms to buyers in hope that they’ll share transaction data.

 

[tvguy]

Not always, realtors in our area have successfully lobbied to keep that data private from the local government, so our Assessor mails out voluntary forms to buyers in hope that they’ll share transaction data.

That is interesting. That is all public record here. Public record by law. And if they don't voluntarily share that information with the Assessor, how does the Assessor set their property taxes?

 

[Darcy03231]

Does your county include the lot in terms of desirability for their assessment value?

Ours does. My neighbor's house is valued a decent amount less than ours simply because our lot is considered 3 or 4 (can't remember) steps above his in terms of land site preference. Now for a buyer they may or may not see that. I mean he still has trees in his back yard just like us it's just we back up to green space on a portion of the lot. The thing that will change for him is he just installed a pool last spring. County assessment wise that will raise his value but selling point wise it can hurt his ability to get a higher amount.

In our state we're assessed an extra $1000 per foot of lake front we own. In my case, we own 100 feet of lake front so we're assessed an additional $100,000, on top of the base assessment of the home.

 

[Darcy03231]

Not always, realtors in our area have successfully lobbied to keep that data private from the local government, so our Assessor mails out voluntary forms to buyers in hope that they’ll share transaction data.

It's public record in my state.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

In our state we're assessed an extra $1000 per foot of lake front we own. In my case, we own 100 feet of lake front so we're assessed an additional $100,000, on top of the base assessment of the home.

Not that I don't disagree with the PP point that sometimes certain property features make it hard for coming up with estimates places use. However, your above situation makes me think Zillow is basing on more accuracy than one would think. Or maybe I'm just looking at it from a different angle.

Consider this..if your State didn't assess the additional square footage then you wouldn't be assessed an additional $100,000 on the value of your property the county has come up with base level. Sellers probably are considering that aspect in the pricing of their homes too in your lake area--regardless of the property selling or not selling for X amount you're still be assessed off of it per your state rule.

You mentioned Zillow says your property is $338K if you add in $100K you'd get a value of $438K; I don't know if that's what your County assessed your property as just doing more simple math. Now that may be still a tad lower than what you could get it for but not too too far off of the $460K you said the last property sold for in terms of looking at Zillow.

You mentioned you couldn't buy a lake property for under $500,000 but that's probably including figures with the additional charge the county is assessing. Buyers often look at what a county assesses a property for at least gauging. Often people don't want to pay as high as the county might assess a property as though unless scarcity exists. I guess you could say sellers in your lake area may be passing on the costs so to speak to the buyer. You're charged that flat $/square foot regardless of what the home sells for.

 

[firefly_ris]

That is interesting. That is all public record here. Public record by law. And if they don't voluntarily share that information with the Assessor, how does the Assessor set their property taxes?

Same here in NYS. Real estate transactions are public record.