Part III: Property, Players, and Prices in .NET framework

Create QR-Code in .NET framework Part III: Property, Players, and Prices

If median-price information is so vague, why bother with it Because it tells you two important things: Price trends: If the median price of a home in America was $140,000 ten years ago and is $180,000 now, you know home prices in general are rising You don t know why median prices are going up, just that they are Price relativity: If the median-price home in Yakima, Washington, sells for $185,000 versus $550,000 for the median-price Honolulu home, you know that you ll get a much bigger bang for your housing buck in Yakima Honolulu has many excellent qualities, but cheap housing isn t one of them Median-home-price statistics make interesting reading, but they aren t any more accurate for determining specific home values than median-income statistics are for determining how much you ll earn from your next employer You need much more precise property-value information before you invest a major chunk of your life s savings in a home You ll find a graph showing US median home prices from 1963 to the present in 4 Note that they declined during the late 2000s because of a weak housing market and a large increase in foreclosures Foreclosures distort regional statistics if counties with a large number of foreclosures are lumped together with other counties that have relatively few foreclosures but are in the same statistical market area No single report gives a truly comprehensive snapshot of any market 3 can help you determine how much you can afford to spend on a home You can find some Web sites in 11 that you can use to locate affordable areas by comparing median home prices on a town-by-town and neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis When median-price statistics indicate that home prices are rising or falling sharply in an area, find out why by reading and talking to players on your real estate team, such as your agent

Believe it or not, houses are like Red Delicious apples Most houses are green and need more time on the real estate tree before they re ready to pick A few are ripe for picking right now The trick is knowing which is which, because houses don t turn red as they ripen That s one reason you must understand fair market value and know the asking prices and sale prices of houses comparable to the one you want to buy Smart home buyers know which houses are green and which are ripe

The best way to accurately determine a home s fair market value is to prepare a written comparable market analysis (CMA) A competent real estate agent can and should prepare a CMA for a home that you re interested in before you make your purchase offer Every residential real estate office has its own CMA format No matter how the information is presented to you, Tables 10-1 and 10-2 show you what good CMAs contain

Table 10-1

Address 210 Oak Date Sold 04/30/09

Sale Price $390,000 Bedrm/ Bath 3/3 Parking 2 car Condition Very good Remarks Best comp Approx same size and cond as dream home (DH), slightly smaller lot 1,867 sq ft $209/SF Busy street Older baths 1,805 sq ft $204/SF Slightly larger than DH, but nearly same size and condition Good comp 1,850 sq ft $208/SF Smaller than DH, but knockout renovation 1,740 sq ft $220/SF Larger than DH, but location isn t as good Superb landscaping 1,910 sq ft $206/SF

02/14/09

$368,500

03/15/09

$385,000

01/12/09

$382,500

3/25

04/20/09

$393,000

These are facts The CMA s Recent Sales section helps establish the fair market value of 220 Oak your dream home that s currently on the market by comparing it with all the other houses that: Are located in the same neighborhood Are approximately the same age, size, and condition Have sold in the past six months