• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Sacramento Appraisal Blog | Real Estate Appraiser

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.

  • About
  • Appraisals
  • Order
  • Ask Ryan
  • Areas
  • Classes
  • Press
  • Trends
  • Share
  • Contact

seeing the current market

Hot Pockets & adjusting for an increasing market

April 25, 2016 By Ryan Lundquist 14 Comments

Hot Pockets. Yep, I’m about to use them to explain the housing market. That either makes me deeply creative or really immature. I’ll let you decide. On a serious note though, let’s talk about this analogy and consider the importance of giving value adjustments to comps during an increasing market. As always, I’d love to hear your take in the comments below.

Hot Pockets and real estate - Greater Sacramento Region Appraisal Blog

Hot Pockets analogy: The real estate market is like a Hot Pocket taken out of the microwave a tad too early. Some portions are blazing hot while others are only warm or frozen. Like a Hot Pocket, we can say the real estate market is “hot” overall, but it’s definitely not the same temperature in every neighborhood or price range.

Thoughts on making adjustments in an increasing market:

  1. Changing Market: If the market has changed since the most recent sales got into contract, a value adjustment may be needed. In other words, if the market is now higher or lower than the sales, we can account for that in an appraisal (or listing) by making an up or down value adjustment to the comps. Of course there needs to be support for making such an adjustment. We can’t just say, “There’s no inventory, so value must be higher”. We need to rather find support in the market (see #2 and #3).
  2. Pendings vs. Sales: There are many signs of an increasing market, but one of the best things to do is compare competitive pendings and sales. Are pendings getting into contract at higher levels? The other day I appraised something where pendings were about 3-4% higher than similar sales from December, so I ended up giving a 3-4% upward adjustment to a couple of sales I used from November and December. I didn’t have many recent sales to work with unfortunately, but comparing a few older sales with a few current pendings helped me see the current market. Remember, the entire county might show certain trends, but we have to look in each neighborhood to find neighborhood trends (which could be different).
  3. Contract Date: When making adjustments we need to look at when the comps got into contract. One comp may have a contract date four months old, while another is from 40 days ago. The change in the market could easily be different for each comp, which means it’s okay to give big adjustments to some comps and smaller ones to others (or no adjustment).
  4. The Real Price: In an increasing market it’s very helpful for appraisers (and agents) to know the exact price of pending “comps” where possible. After all, we might see something listed as “pending” in MLS, but the real contract price could be higher or lower. On one hand appraisers might give less weight to pendings because we don’t know the precise dollar amount in many cases, though when agents divulge the exact contract price and terms, it can help appraisers give even stronger weight to pendings in the neighborhood.
  5. Imperfect Data: It would be nice if all neighborhood data was perfectly aligned, but sometimes it’s conflicting, which means we have to use good judgement. Does that one high sale or pending really reflect the market or not? Is it reasonable? Do those two lower pendings mean the market is starting to soften? Did the hefty credit to the buyer in that one comp inflate the sales price? At the end of the day we have to spend time weighing both sales and listings to see the market, which means sometimes we end up throwing out certain sales because they’re outliers more than anything.

I hope that was helpful.

Questions: When was the last time you ate a Hot Pocket? Anything else you’d add to this post? I’d love to hear your take

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

Share:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Market Trends Tagged With: appraisers giving adjustments, choosing comps, Greater Sacramento appraisal blog, Hot Pockets, increasing values in sacramento, pendings vs sales, real estate analogies, Sacramento appraiser blog, Sacramento home appraisers, sacramento house appraisers, seasonal increase, seeing the current market, talking with appraisers

Primary Sidebar

Connect with Ryan

 Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube Instagram

Subscribe to Weekly Post

* indicates required

Search this site

Blog Categories

  • Appraisal Stuff (408)
  • Bankruptcy (3)
  • Divorce (4)
  • Estate Settlement (6)
  • FHA Appraisal Articles (56)
  • Internet (53)
  • Market Trends (486)
  • Photos from the Field (126)
  • Property Taxes (70)
  • Random Stuff (231)
  • Resources (566)
  • Videos (161)

Blog Archives: 2009 – 2021

Lundquist Appraisal Links

  • Appraisal Order Form
  • Appraisal Website
  • Rancho Cordova Appraiser Website
  • Sacramento Appraisal Blog Sitemap
  • Sacramento Real Estate Appraiser Facebook Page
  • Twitter: Sacramento Appraiser (@SacAppraiser)
  • YouTube: Sacramento Appraiser Channel

Most Recent Posts

  • The housing market feels like chaos
  • An explosion of appraisal waivers. Is that good or bad?
  • Skyrocketing prices aren’t happening everywhere
  • The housing market feels like a crazy auction
  • Are appraisers keeping up with rapid price growth?
  • How much have prices risen since the bottom of the market?
  • How long can this market keep going?
  • What is your housing persona?
  • Rapid price growth & the Gilmore Girls next door
  • Are first-time buyers targeting 2-4 unit properties?

Disclaimer

First off, thank you for being here. Now let's get into the fine print. The material and information contained on this website is the copyrighted property of Ryan Lundquist and Lundquist Appraisal Company. Content on this website may not be reproduced or republished without prior written permission from Ryan Lundquist.

Please see my Sharing Policy on the navigation bar if you are interested in sharing portions of any content on this blog.

The information on this website is meant entirely for educational purposes and is not intended in any way to support an opinion of value for your appraisal needs or any sort of value conclusion for a loan, litigation, tax appeal or any other potential real estate or non-real estate purpose. The material found on this website is meant for casual reading only and is not intended for use in a court of law or any other legal use. Ryan will not appear in court in any capacity based on any information posted here. For more detailed market analysis to be used for an appraisal report or any appraisal-related purpose or valuation consulting, please contact Ryan at 916-595-3735 for more information.

There are no affiliate links on this blog, but there are three advertisements. Please do your homework before doing business with any advertisers as advertisements are not affiliated with this blog in any way. Two ads are located on the sidebar and one is at the bottom of each post. The ads earn a minor amount of revenue and are a simple reward for providing consistent original content to readers. If you think the ads interfere with your blog experience or the integrity of the blog somehow, let me know. I'm always open to feedback. Thank you again for being here.

Copyright © 2021 Sacramento Appraisal Blog