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.

House Appraiser

Unemployment in Sacramento County is flirting with November 2008

By 2 Comments

Did you know the current unemployment rate in Sacramento County at 8.3% has not been this low since November 2008? How does that strike you?

Quick Video: Here is a very quick screencast I did to talk about fresh job stats for the United States, California and Sacramento County. Take less than two minutes to watch so you can be in tune with local and national trends. Your brain size will increase, and you’ll also become a more potent resource for your clients. Okay, maybe I can’t guarantee the size of your brain.  🙂

Watch below (or here on YouTube directly).

Here are some graphs from the video (and one bonus graph). Share them in your newsletter or on your blog, Facebook or any other social place. The only thing I ask is you keep the images intact and link back to my blog if possible. Enjoy.

US unemployment April 2013California Unemployement April 2013 Sacramento Unemployement April 2013  CA Sac US April 2013

 

 

If you liked this post, subscribe by email (or RSS). Thanks for being here.

10 years of housing inventory in Sacramento County

By 1 Comment

Here is a quick snapshot of housing inventory in Sacramento County for the past ten years. I used a graph from Trendgraphix as my base to highlight some of the major happenings in the market. It’s interesting to see parallels and differences between the previous boom and the recent surge in values. Any thoughts?

Inventory in Sacramento County and Trends for past 10 years - Sacramento Appraisal Blog

If you liked this post, subscribe by email (or RSS). Thanks for being here.

6 ways to have a more valuable exchange with appraisers during the inspection

By 7 Comments

If you meet appraisers at your listings, do you feel like you have a valuable exchange or are you simply handing over a stack of comps?

Help for Agents: Today I want to give some quick tips to help facilitate better interactions so real estate agents can communicate well about their listings and appraisers leave with a deeper understanding of the property and transaction. I realize that some appraisers are pretty much non-communicative, but even if that is the case, you can still get across good information by following the tips below.

how to talk to appriasers - image by sacramento appraisal blog

  1. Prime the Meeting: When setting up the appraisal inspection, let the appraiser know you have a packet and you hope to have a quick market conversation during the inspection. Also, ask the appraiser if there is any information he or she needs during the inspection. Remember, a conversation goes two ways, so don’t just talk at an appraiser. An experienced appraiser will be able to offer market insight or even answer some of your questions.
  2. Leave Your Baggage at Home: Treat each meeting as a new opportunity. If you felt the last appraiser you encountered was a dimwit, leave that in the past. It can be easy to bring baggage, anger or frustration into new situations, but that’s hardly ever helpful for the present. In short, be professional and emotionally fresh for the new situation.
  3. Image-purchased-at-123rf-dot-com-and-used-with-permission-14688774_s-smallerAdvice on Giving “Comps”: If you do provide sales and listings to the appraiser, make sure they are actually competitive (similar) rather than the highest sales in the neighborhood that happen to meet the subject property’s contract price. I recommend providing a full detail MLS print out too (including the other agent’s information) so the appraiser does not have to re-print your sales to get the full scoop. This saves paper and time. If you want to go the extra mile, take a few minutes to write notes on the top of each sale to help highlight differences between the subject and other sales.
  4. Focus on Insider Details: Help the appraiser understand how the market responded to your listing. How many offers did you have on the property? What price levels were the other offers? Why was there a change in listing price? Why did the seller accept the particular offer instead of others? What have you noticed happening in the neighborhood market? This sounds like quite a bit of information, but it’s really only a few sentences. Rehearse answering questions like this so you can quickly tell the story of your listing.
  5. Info Sheet: Give the appraiser an information sheet that has already been filled out by the home owner (or you). I created the following form to easily provide more information about recent updates, the neighborhood or anything else that might be relevant. Remember, value is often found in the details. DOWNLOAD HERE for free as a PDF or WORD document. I recommend saving the Word file to your desktop. Feel free to edit the form to your liking.
  6. Quick Tour: Don’t hover over the appraiser, but do point out anything that helps the house stand out. What has been attractive to buyers? Is there anything different about this house that is more or less appealing than other homes in the neighborhood?

It’s easy to let these details slide because life is busy, but taking time to prepare to meet the appraiser is definitely something worthy of building into the rhythm of business. Every other detail in the transaction is handled with great care and attention, so it seems fitting to do the same with the appraisal inspection too.

I hope this was helpful. Any stories or questions? Comment below.

If you liked this post, subscribe by email (or RSS). Thanks for being here.

Two back door ways to comp out tricky properties

By 1 Comment

It’s not always easy to understand how the market sees a property, right? This is especially true for something unique. Well, let me share two things I sometimes do to pick up a deeper perspective on a property. Nothing replaces current data of course, but understanding how the market has historically responded to a home can be really valuable when sifting current trends.

tips-150x1501) Previous Sales: If a house has sold any time after 1998 on Sacramento MLS, you can do a search for other nearby properties at the time of the respective sale. If before October 2008, then use the “Archive” search feature on MLS (you can draw a polygon map there too). As an example, I was talking with a Realtor friend about a tricky property he was hoping to list, and after looking up the sales history for this house, I saw it had sold previously in both 2005 and 2008. There were very few recent sales in this custom neighborhood other than larger and more upgraded homes, so having two previous sales to research was like a gold mine to help answer questions like: What types of houses did the market see as comparable during the sales? What was the price difference between the subject and homes with uber upgrades? How much more did the market pay for larger-sized homes? Assuming there was nothing funky about the previous sales, this search can help give a little more context for historic neighborhood trends and even help support choosing the right comps today. Take this for what it’s worth and realize it’s just one more way to help gain a little more insight.

Example: The graph below shows two previous sales of a property in a particular neighborhood. How did the market respond to a newer property with less charm in an older area of Sacramento? What does the graph tell us? This might give us some insight for choosing comps today, right?

previous sales of subject property

2) Past & Current Market: Secondly, if you’re been following trends, you’ve probably noticed current values in the Sacramento area are similar to levels somewhere around 2002 and 2009 (as the graph below illustrates). While it was unfortunate to see the market collapse in previous years, it’s actually useful from a data perspective to be able to compare current price levels to two previous time periods when values were similar. For instance, if you research sales around 2002 and 2009 in a neighborhood, you might be able to glean a better understanding of how the market has traditionally viewed similar properties or even value aspects such as location or size. This is also a bit of a check to see if your pricing is mostly in sync with trends or if you’re getting too aggressive by using 2005 price levels. Ultimately, this is only to gain more context, so take it with a grain of salt. Be sure to use caution too because not every neighborhood or property type is at the same historical value level right now.

Median-Price-Figures-Sacramento-County-530

Brian McMartin Graph 27-year median price graph in Sacramento CountyThank you Brian: By the way, I want to thank Realtor/Broker Brian McMartin for sharing some incredible graphs with me this week. The data geek in me was rejoicing when he sent over a stuffed Excel file of trends he watches closely to share with his clients. I made the graph above based on his information, and I really appreciate his generosity to share some of his hard work with me (and you). Click the thumbnail to the side to view one of his graphs.

Anything you’d like to add? What do you think?

If you liked this post, subscribe by email (or RSS). Thanks for being here.

Skip to content