I have three things on my mind today. Let’s look at the accused Golden State Killer’s house, a new visual I’m testing out, and some fresh stats.
Huge thanks: First off, thank you for reading my blog this year. This will be my last post of 2019, so I wanted to say I’m truly honored to have you here and I hope you’ll continue to journey with me into the new year. As always, I’m open to your ideas too, so hit me up if you have topics in mind.
GOLDEN STATE KILLER: There’s no holiday cheer with this topic, but we’ve been wondering what would happen if the accused Golden State Killer’s house came to the market. Well, now we know. Sort of. This property sold as a private sale to an FHA buyer a few weeks ago. The SacBee did a piece on it here.
What do you notice about the final price?
Unfortunately the home wasn’t sold on MLS, so we don’t really know the details of how the price was established, but it clearly sold at the lower end of the market. Was the low price due to stigma? Could it be due to condition or lack of upgrades? Or maybe it was the owner selling at a discount? We may never know the details, but it’s interesting nonetheless to see.
House History: It’s sobering to think Joseph James DeAngelo, the accused killer (aka East Area Rapist), was pursuing the “American dream” of home ownership while destroying people’s lives. Here’s a history of the house:
- 1980: Bought the house for $77,000
- 1993: Refinance
- 2003: Refinance
- 2012: Refinance
- 2019: Private transfer to family member
- 2019: Private sale for $320,000
SELLING LOWER (NEW GRAPH): I’m testing out a new graph and I wanted to see what you think. Here’s a look at Roseville and East Sacramento. Would you like to see other neighborhoods? The goal is to see how close a property sells to the original list price vs how long it’s on the market. Thanks Braden Gustafson, MAI for the graph inspiration on Twitter.
The takeaway? The longer a property sits on the market, the further it sells from its list price. I know this is what we’d expect to see, but it’s still cool to visualize. By the way, I used the original list price instead of the most recent list price because it’s a more complete picture of the market.
PRICE CHANGE IN NEIGHBORHOODS: Last week I pulled some stats to prepare for an interview with Channel 10 about price dynamics in Oak Park. So I crunched numbers in about a dozen neighborhoods to help get a wide view of both higher and lower-priced areas.
The Sacramento Bee actually did a piece on my stats too.
I looked at both the dollar change and percentage change on purpose as this helps give a well-rounded view of the market. I also looked at huge chunks of data too as this compared almost an entire year in 2012 vs the same time in 2019. The problem with neighborhood data is if we look at one month only, the numbers can end up being all over the place.
NOTE: If you want this data in a PDF, just send me an email.
Again, thank you for being here. From my family to yours, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. In coming weeks I hope you get a little time off to connect and reflect. Blessings to you.
Questions: Would you feel comfortable buying this house? Would you expect a discount? Any thoughts on the new graphs or price stats? Anything to add?
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Thank you for all your work on this and other posts over the past year. Much appreciated. Enjoy the holidays.
Thanks Gary. I appreciate it. Merry Christmas my friend.
Ryan,
Thank you for such a great blog post! My question to you would be if you were to appraise a home in the same neighborhood as the Golden State Killer’s house with the same floor plan and sq footage, would you use this recent sale as a comp? Or do you think it is an outlier due to it being a private sale and having a negative stigma attached to the house?
Hi Tiffany. Thank you very much. That’s a “killer” question (sorry). 🙂 Seriously, this is a great question. A few thoughts:
1) I would not use this sale because it was a private sale. I have no idea about the details of the transaction. If I was able to verify the details then I could use it. But if there are 9 sales on MLS, why use the one off MLS? In other words, there would need to be a compelling reason for me to use an off-market sale.
2) Not all sales are comps. In this case it’s just a private sale and not the new indicator of value. For other homes I would look to sales that sold on the open market as being the best examples of value. Granted, in some areas there are only private sales because there is not an MLS (Manhattan does not have an MLS, for instance). But for us in Sacramento the market is best seen on MLS. Hands-down. There is a place for using private sales, but it’s probably the exception instead of the rule because the market is dominated by public sales on MLS in our market.
On a related note, this is why we don’t use sales from tech companies as comps. We just don’t know the details, and that can matter greatly. I find tech companies are often getting huge credits back from the seller too, so if I blindly use a “comp” that sold for $450,000 when a tech company is getting a $60,000 credit, then I could be really off when valuing a property. The real price of this property is $390,000 since the seller gave such a fat credit back to the buyer.
3) Whenever a property has some potential baggage (or outright baggage), I tend to think where possible it’s ideal to focus on other comps without such baggage. Like I said above, we just don’t know why this one sold the way it did. Was it condition? Was it stigma? We don’t have all the details. Thus if we use this one to compare to others we end up making a blind comparison. That’s dangerous because we might end up comparing an “apple” to an “orange” so to speak.
For what it’s worth, here’s a blog on using private sales as comps (and why appraisers don’t tend to do that). https://sacramentoappraisalblog.com/2013/01/24/can-appraisers-use-private-sales-as-comps/
Thanks again. Your question was short; My answer was long.
Interesting stuff as always, Ryan.
No surprise that over-list-price offers come immediately. Last spring I was fortunate to sell my house in two days. Buyer’s agent asked me what it would take to, “Get an offer accepted today?” I responded, “in the words of the great philosopher, Don Corleone…”. Worked like a charm!
I don’t think there is much stigma attached to Golden State Killer’s property unless heinous crimes were committed in the house, or bodies were buried in the backyard. Just my 2-cents.
Happy Holidays to you and your family. See you next year…
Tom C.
Thanks Tom. I’m so glad your house sold quickly. It’s so much better that way. I find some sellers today are thinking it’s an aggressive market where they’ll be getting seven offers. That’s just not common, so sellers need to be realistic about that. Regarding stigma it’s an interesting thing because despite no bodies many people have a very negative reaction to this property…
I like the DOM chart. Maybe make 100% line thicker than the rest.
Thanks so much. That’s a great idea. I’ll have to figure out how to do that. I don’t think I’ve ever tried to make one line a different color or thicker. Hmm… Thank you.
Ryan,
Great info and I particularly love the idea of using original asking price. (Metrolist are you listening?)
Care to share the graph construct? That would be a perfect gift.
Have a wonderful holiday.
Thanks so much Vick. Maybe I can do that when I have time to do so. I like the idea of sharing tutorials.
Amen on original list price. The CMA needs to be updated. I use CMAs all the time to glean stats, but I always compare the OLP with the LP and there is almost always a difference. The real trend is seen in the OLP and I’m not too sure what a focus on the LP really offers us. Granted, it’s still interesting and I’m glad to know about it, but it’s just not very useful.
By the way, for any onlookers here’s a few tutorials I already have on how to make a few different types of graphs: https://sacramentoappraisalblog.com/graphs/
You could just add a graphic line on top of the 100% line, make it any thickness or color that you want.
Thank you. Yes, that is an option. I actually figured it out. I had to add another series and simply set the data at the 100% mark. It works like a charm.
Ryan, I really appreciate your graph of Original List Price to Sales Price, vs Days on Market. It’s a keeper.
Bob Mckiernan
Thank you very much. There is another layer to be added here too where we can gauge change over time. In other words, we can actually show a neighborhood and observe how much of a decline there was after 15 days, 30 days, 60 days, etc… I’m going to keep playing with this and hoping to extract that sort of trend because it would be incredibly valuable. Now to find more time to tinker… 🙂
Ryan, you are the King of graphs! SO MUCH information in them, and so CLEAR to the reader! Thank you for all your blogs, I look forward to them, and more in the new year. Happy Holidays to you and your family!
You are too kind. Hearing that a graph is clear is the ultimate compliment. Of course some people look and think, “What is that hot mess? I don’t get it.” Haha. Thanks Pia. 🙂
Thank you so much, Ryan. I have enjoyed your blogs over the past year and look forward to receiving them in the future. I would love receiving the 2012 vs. 2019 data in a pdf. Thanks again!
Thank you Sharon. You are so welcome. I just emailed you. 🙂
Merry Christmas Ryan. I have enjoyed your Blogs and insight you have gave me this year. I look forward to next years Blogs
Thank you so much Rick. Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones. I look forward to connecting next year.
Terrific job as always Ryan. You truly are a go giver. Keep up the good info in 2020.
Happy Holidays.
Dennis Jay Johnson
ps: could you send stats on 95821 & 95608. tks
Thank you sincerely Dennis. I’ll email you what I have, but I really only pulled stats for about a dozen areas. This was me studying for a conversation with a reporter. The response has been very positive though, so I’ll have to put together some charts like this in the future. So be on the lookout at some point for other charts. Feel free to prod me too if there is something you’d like to see too as that can help shape the content I put out.