Sacramento Appraisal Blog

Market trends and real estate appraisals for divorce, estate settlement, loans, property tax appeal, pre-listing and more. We cover Sacramento, Placer and Yolo County. We're professional, courteous and timely.

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My favorite 11 blog posts of 2010

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Happy New Year! I hope 2011 is turning out to be great so far. After having just returned from Southern California for a week visiting with family, I am geared up and ready for the year ahead. As I blaze forward in life and business, I wanted to take a glance at this past year of blogging and highlight my eleven favorite posts of 2010. It wasn’t easy to pick only eleven posts, but the ones below made the cut because of fond memories of great conversation, relevant information, or just the sheer fun of posting about the topic. 

1. What legos can teach us about real estate
2. Would the sound of a train drive you crazy?
3. A water tower behind a house in the Pocket area of Sacramento
4. A major hoarder property in West Sacramento
5. The Skinny on Streng Houses in Sacramento
6. A flashlight tour of a dark boarded-up house in South Sacramento
7. Four reasons why appraisals “come in low”
8. Is price per square foot an accurate way to measure the value of a house?
9. Should the Arden-Arcade area of Sacramento become a city?
10. Appraisers vs. Machines: What do you think of websites like Zillow?
11. Would you buy Dorothea Puente’s house?

Thank you for making this past year such a joy. I sincerely appreciate you stopping by the Sacramento Appraisal Blog last year, and I hope you’ll do the same this year ahead. If you have any questions, you can reach me via email, catch me on Facebook, or call 916.595.3735.

What phone do you use for business?

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I’m considering a smart phone upgrade. I’ve been using a G1 for almost two years, and it’s been good for me overall. After constant usage though, the battery is about to die, and frankly I think I’m ready for some new tech that will be a bit faster in the internet speed department. I use T-Mobile as my service provider and I’m strongly considering the new G2 phone since I’ve liked the G1 so much. The G1 was of course Google’s first phone unveiled under the Android umbrella.

The features on my current phone that have come in most handy for me while I’m on the road with my real estate appraisal business are: Google Maps, Google Voice, camera (it takes really great pictures actually),  preview of PDF documents, physical keyboard to quickly return emails and text messages to clients, tremendous Gmail integration, and apps for Facebook and Twitter. Oh, and let me state the obvious that the phone has worked very well and I’ve not had a problem with dropped calls. 

What type of phone are you using for business? Any suggestions for me? Also, what apps and functions have become essential for your business?

Tips for starting a successful blog for your business

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Last week a client invited me to speak to his office staff to help them understand how to build a successful blog for their real estate business. I was excited for the opportunity because it’s always nice to add value where I can. We talked about the relevance of using a blog as a tool to establish an online presence and why blogs are important. It was very practical too in that I set them up with usernames, and we even wrote a blog post on the spot. Learning should be experiential, right?  

I figured some of the content from my presentation might be useful to others, so I uploaded a 15-minute audio-video tutorial. Let me know what you think. 

If you work in the real estate field near Sacramento and I can help you sift through the world of blogging and building an online presence, let’s connect at 916.595.3735 or catch me on Facebook.

Any questions? What tips would you add to the mix?

Appraisers vs. Machines: What do you think of websites like Zillow?

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People ask me sometimes what I think about websites like Zillow or Cyberhomes. In short, I don’t think computers do as good of a job appraising properties as real humans. Call me biased, but there are some things that real people can still do better than machines. However, though these websites cannot fully replace real estate appraisers, they do have a place to help gain a ballpark figure for a house (please take that with a grain of salt though because figures can still be way off). Additionally, I’m a fan of the multi-year trend graphs that Zillow produces.

The Sacramento Bee actually published an article last Friday about this very topic entitled Home Front: Appraisal sites on Net often fail to pin down accurate prices. The bottom line is that websites like Zillow seem to have greater accuracy in tract markets with ample sales, but even then they are only so good because they cannot sift through value indicators like condition, important neighborhood boundaries, upgrades, and a local appraiser’s knowledge of the market area.

I ran some test cases over recent work I have done and found the following:

– My house (tract): Zillow was 28% high / Cyberhomes was 24% high.
– Elk Grove house 2.0 acres: Zillow was 46% low / Cymberhomes had no value.
– Tract House in Davis: Cyberhomes was 4% high / Zillow was 2.5% high.
– Sacramento River property: Zillow was 40% low / Cymberhomes had no value.
– Tract House in Galt: Zillow was 9.5% high / Cyberhomes was 5.0% low.

What do you think of these websites? What do you think they’re useful for? Do me a favor and run your property by Zillow and/or Cyberhomes and let me know the results.

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