Tag Archives: zillows

Why Was the Appraisal Way Off the Zillows Price?

Posted on June 20, 2013 | Leave a comment

For millions of serious and not-so-serious homebuyers, the first stops in the house hunt are likely the Zillows and Trulias. Consumers are drawn to their simple and intuitive designs, and more importantly, the landslide of listing information they can gather after a few searches.

Have questions regarding the value of your home? Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for your value questions.

What consumers can’t see is how the information is collected, culled and presented — a proprietary process that could lead to inaccuracies. Real estate agents and brokers in San Diego County and beyond have their horror stories: incorrect bed and bath counts, duplicates with differing prices and homes listed as active when they have already sold. What’s the likely implication of this for consumers? Misinformed buying decisions.

It’s also important to note that the Zillows and Trulias also draw from various sources. They include data providers, brokerages, individual agents and MLSs.

So the results you see on those sites represent a lot of data changing hands and being cleaned up in ways that are not disclosed to the public.

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

What Square Footage Doesn’t Say

Posted on March 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

THE quirks of residential layout dictate that any measurement of square footage in a house will be debatable at best, agents and other experts say.

Assessors, who measure living space as one of many variables in computing home value, follow guidelines set by the state’s Department of Taxation and Finance. These guidelines, to take just one example, automatically exclude the basement from any calculation of living space.

In an appraisal one of the requirements is the appraiser measures all living space and garage and out buildings. Why is the public record SF of your home different from the actual SF? Contact the appraisers at www.socalappraisalserv.com for questions or have a licensed appraiser measure your property.

No matter how spectacularly well remodeled that basement may be — lavishly enough, perhaps, to increase the assessor’s ultimate determination of property value — its location in the house makes it irrelevant as square footage.

This may come as a surprise to buyers relying on real estate Web sites like Zillow and Trulia that make a feature of the “price-per-square-foot” calculation. Trulia, especially, considers price per square foot so significant that it highlights it right alongside the number of baths and bedrooms.

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

How to Figure the Fuzzy Math of Internet Home Values

Posted on November 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

Websites may be a good starting place, but when determining the value of your home you need a licensed professional that does not average the sales price of every home within a 1 mile radius. Imagine you have an ocean front house but the website uses properties across the street (no beach front or ocean view; your property blocks their view, properties blocks away, etc. How would you figure out the adjustments for your beach front. Again this is where you need an appraiser. Contact the appraisers at www.socalappraisalserv.com for you value questions.

Jason Gonsalves worked hard to turn his 6,500-square-foot stucco-and-stone home in the suburbs of Sacramento into the ultimate grown-up party pad, complete with game room, custom wine cellar and an infinity-edge pool overlooking Folsom Lake. When interest rates fell recently, Mr. Gonsalves, who runs a lobbying firm, looked into refinancing his $750,000 mortgage. That’s when he got startling news—the home had dropped more than $200,000 in value while he was renovating.

Or at least, that’s what one real-estate website told him. Another valued the house at only $640,500. And these online estimates left him all the more confused when a real-life appraiser, assessing the house for the refinancing loan, pinned its value at $1.5 million. “I have no idea how those numbers could be so different,” Mr. Gonsalves says.

Right or wrong, they’re the numbers millions of consumers are clamoring for. After years of real-estate pros holding all the informational cards in the home-sale game, Web-driven companies like Zillow, Homes.com and Realtor.com are reshuffling the deck, giving home shoppers and owners estimates of what almost any home is worth. People have flocked to the data in startling numbers: Together, four of the biggest sites that offer home-value estimates get 100 million visits a month, with web surfers using them to determine what to ask or bid for a home, or whether to refinance.

Read the entire article at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204554204577026131448329006.html

Disclaimer: For information and entertainment purposes only.

Tag Archives: zillows

Why Was the Appraisal Way Off the Zillows Price?

What Square Footage Doesn’t Say

How to Figure the Fuzzy Math of Internet Home Values

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