Median Price Down in North County

[sdrealtor]

[an]

You give all realtors too much credit. Most of the homes for sale right now are represented by a realtor. I see houses represented by realtors who “rot on the shelves” for over 6 months. If you mean realistic seller with the help of a good realtor, then I agree. But realistic seller and bad realtor or unrealistic seller and any realtor won’t resort to a fast sell. In this environment, it would “rot on the shelves”.

Why would there be no Realtor? You have people who need to sell and people who need to buy, realtor connect those two people and take care all of the paper works and putting data into the MLS. But the MLS is very lacking the way it is and should be free to the public with much more data open to the public, which the Realtor already have. I’m surprise Google or Yahoo hasn’t created something much better and free.

[ocrenter]

Unfortunately the lot is actually very much the same size compared to the one selling for $75,000 less. And sorry, I would not call a backyard facing the community park where there’s increased noise and people “prime location”. Also, the entrance for the entire community is right at the park, so the folks coming in to the entire tract will see your backyard as they drive in. And no, this home is not a corner lot home either. Now homes that have their backyard against the hills, that’s a different story, neither one are like that.

As for the “former model home” claim. If you like to show us some links to pictures varifing that, great, would love to see them. However, are granite counters, crown molding, and upgraded carpet in a tract home really worth $75,000? Maybe to you, not certainly not to me. But hey, you are the professional.

Now as for the plug about Realtors. Let’s give a plug to zillow.com and domania.com for giving the power of info to the little guys, so we can see for ourselves that frankly, the yard really isn’t much bigger at all. And frankly, the lot premium isn’t really much of a premium.

oh, btw, this “former model home” was sold in 2/04 for $478,000. Exactly $18,000 more than the one currently on sale (this one was bought for $460,000 12/03). So tell us, sdrealtor, was the $18,000 difference in lot premium? or is it upgrades? I didn’t realize such price difference will translate into a $75,000 difference in just a couple of years!!!

or maybe it was simply that prices were going up so fast that a home bought in 12/03 and 2/04 had a price difference of $18,000. and now prices are going down so fast that a home sold in 3/06 and a home on sale a month later can have a $75,000 difference.

what goes up, must come down.

[ocrenter]

Now here we have a home in the same tract that does have bigger yard and added privacy of backing up to the hills, and it is bigger by another 100 sqft.

xx0 VIA DEL CABALLO, San Marcos, CA 92078
Bedrooms: 4
Bath: 3.5
sq ft: 2,445
List Price: $594,000 – $627,000

So we can see, as far as xx0 ($594,000) vs. xx7 ($550,000), sdrealtor is absolutely right! The lot primium, the larger yard, AND a bigger sqft yielded a $44,000 price difference.

So again, sdrealtor, what kind of an upgrade allows for a $75,000 mark up??? because remember, the $75,000 difference was between two homes of same size, same yard, and the more expansive one actually has a location DISADVANTAGE!

[zk]

sdrealtor,

I appreciate your posts for the balanced view and professional knowledge they help to bring to this page.

But when you say, “If there were no Realtors and no Multiple Listing Service which is not a public utility but rather a system paid for and supported by Realtors homes would be very difficult to sell at any price,” this seems to me to be a bit of an outdated view. Prior to the internet, it may have had more validity. But I don’t see any reason why there couldn’t be a website (or several) that contain all the listings of houses for sale. Such a website could easily be run without charging each seller more than a hundred bucks or so. There could be a complete listing of sold properties available for making comparisons. There’d be kinks to work out, for sure, but an efficient system could no doubt be established. Then, when buyer and seller agreed on a price, you could hire real estate professionals to check the title, check all the other things that have to be checked, cross the i’s dot the t’s, finish the paperwork, etc. You could pay them $60/hr just like you pay an engineer. Maybe a little more to cover their insurance. You’d end up paying them maybe a couple thousand. Which seems more reasonable and fair than paying them enough to send their kid to college just because the real estate racket forces you to do so.

When I say real estate racket, what I’m talking about is the fact that if you don’t offer 2 1/2 percent to the buyer’s agent, most buyer’s agents won’t show their clients your home. They, like so many commission-based sales people, frequently place the size of their commission ahead of their customer’s wants and needs.

It seems to me to only be a matter of time before a critical mass of home buyers and sellers understand what a fleecing is taking place, the MLS is rendered worthless, and you don’t have people making a full-time income for selling 3 or 4 houses in a year.

I’m sure you’ll disagree with a lot of the above, and I’m interested to hear your viewpoint.

[powayseller]

Excellent points! If we had more data at our hands, we could use realtors as consultants to complete the transactions.

Realtors get paid so much to be compensated for the great amount of time that goes into marketing their business, advertising their listings, and driving clients to homes.

A realtor should be paid hourly or by the job like a CPA, a professional engineer, or an attorney. They can charge a fee for listing your home, a fee for handling the trsnsaction, a fee for giving you a sales analysis. Then you decide how much you want to spend on advertising your home.

Realty-A-La-Carte.

[hs]

Realty-A-La-Carte is a great idea.
I think those realtors get paid too much and they don’t really deserve it, especially those who don’t even care what their clients’ needs are. All they concern is how to get the commission into their own pockets. So far, I haven’t met a good, high quality realtor, yet. They showed me they are just like those used car salespersons.

[sdrealtor]

Sorry but we’ve never met 😉

[sdrealtor]

Properties rotting on the shelf are generally overpriced. Sometimes it is a bad agent, sometimes its an unrealistic seller and sometimes its both. It’s amazing that homes sit on the market and once they are reduced they eventually sell…EVERY TIME! There is a buyer for every home as long as the price is right.

A fast sale is not a bad thing its a good thing. Unfortunately most dont understand that. This is a very active market and there are lots of people looking for the right house at the right price. Price it right, which is the price thats fair for the buyer and the seller and they sell quickly. If you price it too low, you’ll get a stack of offers and it will be obvious. I just wrote an offer on an underpriced property in Carmel Valley at $1.2M. There were several offers within 3 days while other overpriced listings as sitting.

As for connecting buyer’s and seller’s being easy, you are simplifying things. Try selling your furniture at a yard sale and see what you get….pennies on the dollar. Think the Internet is the solution? Better yet, put it on ebay or craigslist…..may be 25 to 50 cents on the dollar.

Every one wants the MLS to be free but no one understands how expensive it is to maintain, monitor and police such a system. It is not cheap and the liabilities as to making representaions are huge. Could it be done on a national level. Sure, it probably will someday but that day is not close. Real Estate transactions are very complex. Lawsuits abound and if most of understood all of the legal issues we deal with on a daily basis you would know why we exist.

[sdrealtor]

Upgrades to a model can easily exceed $75K but i havent seen either home. As for overlooking a community park/open space. I’d rather face that than another house 10 feet out my back window but you are missing the point. I’m just pointing out that you analysis was flawed. Here’s the other possibly even bigger flaw. The house sold at 625 and you are comparing it to a house on the market with a 550 to 599 value range. You are assuming it will sell at the bottom of the range. It might and it might not, but I’d bet the seller is looking for 575 to 599 right now. Will he get it….who knows?

As for Zillow…it stinks right now. Hopefully it will get better. It has my house $200K below what it would sell for today. if I put the Zillow price on my house I would have at least 50 offers in a week…guaranteed!

[sdrealtor]

Selling 3 or 4 houses a year is not easy and requires a full time effort for most. 90% of what we do, we dont get paid for like most sales people. Here’s the math…let’s say you sell 4 average priced homes (600K). At 2.5%, that is 15K each or a total of 60K. The broker you work for takes a 1/3rd maybe more. Now you are down to 40K. Now you have to pay both sides of Social Security (12%)and taxes (let’s be genereous and say 20%). Now you are down to 27K. Throw in health insurance and business expenses and you have about 15K left. All this for the pleasure and aggravation of putting up with late nights/weekends, clients who lie to you/have no loyalty and a very unpredictable income stream.

Yeah..i’ll bet you are all salivating over this job. The truth is we have too many realtors, many of whom are underemployed. I’d venture to guess that at least 50% would do better by giving up their false dreams of riches and taking a job at Nordstroms!

[ocrenter]

“The $625,000 was for the Former Model with tons of upgrades, a prime location and a much larger than average yard.”

So if you never seen the two properties why would you say with SUCH CONFIDENCE that this was a former model home??? Especially when the selling price of the two homes back in late 2003/early 2004 only had a $18,000 spread. In fact, your assumption about the yard size being much larger is completely wrong! They are the same exact size.

My arguments are certainly not without flaws. afterall, what if the house that sold for $625,000 had marble flooring thru out and included build-in Viking appliances and frig with toilet made of gold? Sure, that would account for it selling for that much more. Is it likely? No. But unfortunately your counter-arguments are even more flawed, especially when you just assume it was a model home with a bigger yard, neither assumptions are true.

And certainly that comment about the lack of privacy with the folks at the community park having direct visual into your yard being “better,” well, let’s just leave it at that.

And what about the other comp with a bigger lot, better location, and a bigger sqft being offered for lower than $625,000?

[sdrealtor]

Don’t know about the other comp? Market’s going down…we all know that much. But it hasnt fallen 75K….you missed my other point which is you are comparing a 625 sale of a Former Model with an average home priced in a Value Range of 550 to 599 (BTW, I hate Range Pricing) and are assuming its going to sell for 550. It hasnt sold and no one knows what it will sell for. It could sell for 599, it could sell for 499…no one knows.

BTW, the former model had maple cabinets (5 to 10 k upgrade), hardwood floors (easily 20K if you’ve ever put them in), a BBQ island in back (5K), high quality carpet (another 2 to 4K easy), a balcony (10 to 15K typically), real yard with real landscaping (10 to 25 K easily), leaded glass windows/mirrored closet doors (a grand or two), custom window treatments (5k easy), built-in media cabinet (2 to 4K), crown moulding (a couple grand), Central A/C (5 grand easy). If you have ever done these kinds of upgrades, you know these are very realistics costs. Whether they are worth doing and whether you will get back your money on them is another question. But this house clearly had a lot of upgrades thrown at it over the basic homes that comprise most of this community. The seller was also represented by a very good agent which no doubt helped. The buyer was also represented by a good agent. All in all, I’d say they probably both got a fair deal in today’s market.
As for the yard, I’ve seen several homes in that tract and most had about 5 feet of concrete behind them. The pictures on this one looked like it actually had a yard which most that I have seen don’t…hence a much larger than average yard. As for the privacy issue, there isnt much in this tract but I certainly would prefer a park occupied by young children during the day when I’m not there to a house 10 feet away that’s occupied at night when I am there. Just my preference. Maybe your’s are different?
As for the home backing up to the hillside being a premium location? Those homes are generally cold and dark. They are typically difficult to sell and usually sell for less.

[ocrenter]

xx7 VIA DEL CABALLO, San Marcos, CA 92078
Bedrooms: 4
Baths: 3
Sq ft: 2,358
Listing Price: $550,000 – $599,876
Price Reduced: 04/25/06 — $550,000 to $539,000
Last Purchased: Dec 03 $460,000

[Author]

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