Seller Misconceptions “Sunk Cost”: a retrospective (past) cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. –Wikipedia What Sellers paid for their home — and how much they subsequently put into it (for improvements, updates, etc.) — are important psychologically.* And, depending on how much the would-be Seller currently owes on their home, the sum of their cost + improvements...Read More
A Dartboard By Any Other Name Estimated Value: $615,101 Estimated Value Range: $547,440 – $682,762 Confidence Score: 82 Forecast Standard Deviation: 11 –“Estimated Value” by CoreLogic; Hennepin County tax records excerpt. Sorry, estimating a home’s value — with a range of more than $100k (or $136k, in the case of this Eden Prairie home, above) —...Read More
The Art of Doing Comp’s Want the science art of Comp’s (for “Comparable Sold Properties”) in a nutshell? It’s placing a given (“subject”) property on a continuum, between the home just below it in price, and the one immediately above. What could be simpler, right? “This and That” Ahhh, but which two homes are those...Read More
Quality vs. Quantity What’s the difference between a “retail” Realtor price opinion and a “wholesale” price opinion? (my terms) With the former, the listing agent casts a much broader net, issuing a blanket invitation to, say, all their office colleagues to view the home at a particular time. The catch? In practice, the Realtors who...Read More
Defining the Denominator One of the more useful (ballpark) benchmarks for determining a home’s likely selling price these days is what Realtors call “sales price as a percentage of list (or asking) price.” Depending on what part of the Twin Cities you’re talking about (and what price point), the number that’s out there at the moment is...Read More
Omitting Seller-Paid Points Want to know why many real estate Web sites — never good at estimating home prices — are off by at least another 3% now? Because Seller-paid points are a fixture of many house deals these days, yet the government data that many real estate sites rely on don’t report that. Instead, Hennepin County and...Read More
