How do you value an attached unit when there are no recent sales?

I get quite a few calls from the real estate community about pricing attached units. The conversation tends to go like this:

Agent: Ryan, I’m working on pricing a halfplex, and it’s not easy.
Me: I feel your pain.
Agent: There aren’t any recent halfplex sales in the neighborhood, and my unit is larger than others too. What should I do?
Me: You should probably just guess and hope you’re okay on value.
Agent: What??
Me: I’m kidding. Let’s talk about it.

What is a halfplex? If you are located in another part of the country, you might call an attached home something else, but in the Sacramento area we say “halfplex” (sort of like half a duplex). The home below is a halfplex because it is connected to the house next door by the garage and a wall inside. Moreover, the parcel line runs through the center of the connecting wall in the garage, so each unit is individually owned and has its own lot.

It’s not always easy to value certain properties – especially when sales are sparse. This is why it’s important to have a solid valuation methodology clipped to your real estate utility belt so you can apply it as needed.

Tips for Valuing a Halfplex (Attached Home):

1) Apples to Apples: An attached home should be compared to other attached homes because a buyer looking for a detached unit is usually NOT simultaneously in the market for an attached one. It’s just a different type of house. Moreover, there can be a huge value difference between attached vs. detached.

2) Start in the Immediate Neighborhood: You’ll want to find halfplex (attached) sales in the immediate neighborhood so you are sure what buyers have been willing to pay in the area. If you go out too far looking for “comps”, it’s easy to miss the immediate market by assuming that values are similar in other tracts. I recommend using the Polygon tool in Sacramento MLS so you can actually draw exact neighborhood boundaries in the immediate subdivision to be sure you are only getting data from those boundaries. You might want to start looking at sales over the past 6 months and then go back to one year. In an ideal world you will have a ton of sales, but we all know that doesn’t always happen.

TIP: In addition to sales, be sure to look at both listings and withdrawn listings in the immediate neighborhood to get a fuller picture of neighborhood values.

3) Look at Older Sales in Immediate Neighborhood: Be sure to look back over the past few years or so in the immediate neighborhood so you can see gain a better context for the halfplex market. You probably won’t use these oldies as comps in a listing presentation (or appraisal), but they still might provide a fantastic context because you can either add or subtract value to older sales based on what the market has done over time.

4) Previous Subject Property Sale: Has the subject property sold previously? If so, look up sales at the time to see what it was comparable to in the neighborhood? Moreover, how has the market changed since it sold previously? Be sure to give more value weight to recent sales and current reasonable listings, but be aware of any previous sale to help create context. Remember the condition of the subject property might have changed over time, and pay attention to the nature of the previous sale (maybe it sold for too little or too much).

5) Competitive Sales in Other Tracts: In some areas of town there are simply few attached homes, so you may need to go out several miles to find comps. The problem of course is that if you travel too far, some neighborhoods might have higher or lower prices, so be aware of value adjustments that might need to be made. As a rule of thumb, try to look in areas where you think a buyer might realistically considering hunting for a home if the subject property was not available. You can double check how comparable other neighborhoods are by comparing older sales in the immediate neighborhood with older sales in neighborhoods that are further away. For instance, if you have an older sale that closed at $250,000 in the immediate neighborhood, how much did similar-sized halfplex sales in further places sell for at the time? If the neighborhood that is further away ends up being very similar in price when comparing historical sales, there is a good chance current sales in the further neighborhood could help tell you what the current market is willing to pay for your neighborhood.  Be careful to not just look at one sale though because one sale does not make or break the market. Having a few data points is best so you know you’re not just looking at an outlier.

6) Detached Units in Immediate Neighborhood: Be aware of what other detached units are selling for in the neighborhood. If there are very few recent sales, I recommend going back in time to find out what the price difference was between halfplex (attached) sales and similar-sized detached sales in the immediate neighborhood. Then once you understand the price difference in the past neighborhood market, come back to today’s market. What are similar-sized detached sales currently selling for? This may help you see what attached units should theoretically be selling for. Remember, this is definitely a back-burner approach to value, and it’s not the first step, but it can still provide context.

7) Bottom of the Market: Where is the bottom of the market in the immediate neighborhood? There is a good chance that halfplex (attached) units tend to sell toward the bottom of the price range compared to similar-sized detached units. I’m not saying all halfplex units are going to sell for dirt cheap, but only that they tend to be marketed toward the lower end of the price ladder in many neighborhoods.

I hope that was helpful. If you’re interested in more details, see How to choose comps like an appraiser.

Photo Credit: The first photo is from Roseville & Rocklin Realtors Steve & Heather Ostrom (thanks).

Question: Anything else you’d add? I’d love to hear your take in the comments.

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