PRICE DROPS ARE UP! Been noticing more local home sellers slashing prices? It’s not just that HAR listings now highlight them: Real estate website Trulia notes that one-quarter of all homes it tracks in the Houston market (mostly through MLS) dropped their asking prices over the last year. That’s 32 percent more price cuts than for the previous year-long period, and qualifies Houston as one of the top 5 cities Trulia follows where asking-price reductions have been on the upswing. The average price cut here: 9 percent. [Trulia, via Houston Business Journal]
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It would be interesting to see how many of these “reductions” had been in pending status and went back into active status after the appraisals came in and the seller found himself without a buyer after the buyer found himself without a lender.
But not to worry. HAR will soon be spinning some more spin. As will HCAD at the protest hearings.
But but but, I thowt da wecession wuz ovah?
@Matt, no kidding.
I went to HCAD to debate my taxes and had an article from the Chron Home section stating that my neighborhood experienced a 9% decline in value based on years sales. They wouldn’t accept that.
Instead they brought up comp sales that included homes in Montrose (I live in the Heights). Montrose, really?
They base their argument on homes from a different zip code and different neighborhood and call that a comp. A comp is anything that is 5 miles away in their minds. Sorry HCAD, this isn’t suburbia. 5 miles inside the loop gets you a crazy variety of homes. Funny though their computer didn’t bring up any of the homes east of I-45 as comps, even though those are closer than Montrose.
The law allows them to use anything in Harris County as a comp.
The best way to deal with them is to find variation within your subdivision. Same house, same square footage, different valuation. Take photos. Drives them nuts. And they usually will make an adjustment on a median basis between the highest and lowest. Keep in mind you can sue.
If you have two or more sales in your subdivision you can sometimes use that. The variation in valuation works. Try it next time. Or during appeal.
Bottom line is we have had mayors and city councilmembers as well as county comissioners and school board trustees who don’t know what the word budget means so the appraisal district is expected to maintain the income they waste.