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Category Archives: real estate

Wayback Wednesday… An Oldy, but a Moldy

Wednesday, 07 September 2011 08:58
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mold on bread

Image via Wikipedia

Poor mold.  People are trying to save the whales and bring back the Dodo Bird, but most everyone would be happy is mold were extinct.  But it isn’t…  Mold is alive and kicking, and more of a problem than ever.  And it usually hangs out with some other unsavory characters, Rot and Termites (that are all followers of Moisture).

A couple of years ago I was involved with a moldy property and I learned a few things.  I posted up some good information about Mold, where to find it and how big of an issue it can be.  And it can be a REALLY BIG problem.

Of course, it wasn’t my first run in with the stuff.  Back when I was a reasonably new real estate agent in Gwinnett County, GA, I worked with one of my investor clients on a property that had some pretty significant mold issues.

Real estate prices were crashing around it.  The previous owner had custom built the house, and it was pretty obvious that either they really didn’t have “builder” experience (as opposed to “building” experience), or they ran out of money partway through the project.  The whole “builder v building” experience thing is another post someday, though.

The homes was large and had wonderful high ceilings, a large garage, nice flow patterns and was well sited on the lot.  But, in this luxury home in a subdivision that had homes worth as much as a million dollars, there were no crown mouldings, no granite counters and cabinets that looked like stockers from Home Depot (not knocking HD, but the house deserved at least semi-custom cabinetry).

But the basement was where our story was…  It was nasty.  The home had been unoccupied for at least 9 months and was loaded with mold.  We knew that the HVAC was going to have to be changed… it would be cheaper than cleaning it out.  But the basement was almost beyond salvation.  The solution was to gut it and leave it unfinished.  It had been finished, and was pretty well finished, but was going to have to be “unfinished” in order to remediate the mold problems.  All of the drywall was junk… and we also knew that some of the structural wood would need to be replaced.  Most importantly, we knew that it would need to spend a good long time with proper airflow.

The bank that repossessed the house had DESTROYED their collateral by turning off the power.  Because the HVAC wasn’t running for those 9 months, the bank likely saved about $3000.  But in saving that $3000, the value of the home likely dropped by $200,000.  Not a good trade…  The house should have been able to sell for $500,000, but instead barely managed to bring $300,000.  Of course, the bank wasn’t real bright anyway… they turned down our offer at one point, and then lowered the price to our offer less than two weeks later.

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Change to Local Market Reports

Monday, 05 September 2011 08:00
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Image representing Zillow as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

As a real estate agent, I run across a lot of cool tools.  Some of them are great for me to better read the markets and help buyers and sellers to accomplish their goals.  Other tools are great for consumers to use while making decisions about buying or selling a home.

I always recommend that both buyers and sellers look at the local market where they are buying or selling.  It has a tremendous bearing on whether prices are on the rise or falling, as well as what the competitive environment might be.  Looking at a solid CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) for the home (that they are selling or looking at buying) is a great start… but it doesn’t give the wide picture.

 

Map of Georgia highlighting Gwinnett County

Image via Wikipedia

Many buyers and sellers turn to AVMs (Automated Valuation Models) to get an idea of the value of a home.  Probably the most well known of these would be the Zillow Zestimate.  I have written about Zillow and their Zestimates a few times.  Zestimates are amazing tools… within the bounds of their limitations.

 

While I would quickly point out that Zestimates are a very limited tool in regards to pegging the value of a particular property, one thing I will point out just as quickly is that the Zestimates have given Zillow an amazing database of historical and current home values.  And while individual Zestimates are seldom right, I feel that their compiled data is quite accurate (1 house is too small a sample size to be accurate, but 10,000 houses can make them very accurate in pegging the market in general).

I will be incorporating Zillow’s Local Area Indexes into my Market Reports moving forward.  I think that they are a valuable tool for you, the consumer, to better assess the market value of homes that you might be considering.  Look for charts like this one for various areas within Gwinnett as part of market reports.

Atlanta Metro Zillow Home Value Index

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Big Garages Aren’t Always The Coolest.

Friday, 02 September 2011 08:00
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A sitting room in the United Kingdom. Original...

Image via Wikipedia - Can you imagnie a Ferrari parked in there?

OK, space IS really nice.  But when it comes to cool, space isn’t always the defining factor.  But, usually when we see the articles in the big papers or magazines, the garages are huge and expensive.  I have to admit that I don’t see that many really cool garages done on the cheap.

But what if the garage were incorporated into the living space?  How would YOU feel about your ride staring at you while you watch Burn Notice on the flat screen?  Frankly, I kind of like the idea.  Not to say that I could have that as my ONLY garage… I am not so keen on the idea of welding in my living room.  But, if I had a showpiece, I would be happy to park it in the house.  At least in the RIGHT house.

Home-Designing.com recently had an article about Cars in the Living Room.  It was a pretty good follow-up to an article a couple of years ago about the Coolest Garages.

 

BTW, if I had a fairly big budget to create a garage, I would have a 1950s Service Station behind the house.  It would be complete with lifts and 6 bays or so.  Of course it would have to have space for a little machine shop, and those really cool glass roll-up doors.  While I’m at it, I guess I would want to have gas pumps, too.  How cool would it be to have my own pumps for bio-diesel and gas… right at home?

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Wayback Wednesday… Bankrupt Subdivisions… Good Deal?

Wednesday, 31 August 2011 08:00
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Sign of the times - Foreclosure

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Two years ago, I wrote about some of the pros and cons of buying a home in a ‘distressed’ subdivision.  While there aren’t quite as many builder foreclosure properties as there were a couple of years ago, there are resales coming into the market now from people that bought builder foreclosures.

As with many things, all that is old is new again.  I’m hearing from buyers more than any time in the last year and a half that they are thinking about buying a home in an abandoned subdivision.

As I said in the original post, there are both pros and cons.  It would be a great post to go back and read.

Oddly, a couple of months after writing the post, I got a call from a local TV station that wanted to interview me on camera regarding this situation with a specific subdivision.  Unfortunately, I was on vacation with my family and out of town.  I wasn’t important enough to warrant a satellite interview…

Homes had originally been marketed at $600k to $800k in the neighborhood.  As the market started to slide, the prices offered by the builder started to drop.  They weren’t able to sell many units though.  Eventually, the bank took over and was selling the homes in the $400k to $500k range.  Just after the last existing home had been sold, another builder bought the remaining lots and began selling homes under $300k.

Some of the owners in the neighborhood that had purchased at higher prices were VERY upset with the builder and everyone else involved.  One owner had purchased for just over $800k, and needed to relocate.  Her house was not likely to sell for much over half that.

The bottom line is that there is potential for a VERY good deal… and there are some major pitfalls that could make that deal go very sour.  Step in with your eyes wide open…

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School Has Started… Moving Season Must Be Over. Or IS It?

Monday, 29 August 2011 08:00
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Etchingham School 1946

Image by ttelyob via Flickr

I get a similar question every year about this time…  Many buyers (and some sellers) worry that after school has started it must be too late to move their kids if there is a school change involved.  The feeling is that it is rough to move kids during the school year because the classes might not be in sync… students may be learning different things.

A few years ago, I ran across an article by a Child Psychologist.  (I wish I could locate the article again…).  In it, she stated that kids actually cope best with a move during the school year, and the best time during the school year to move is at the very beginning.  The theory behind that timing is that it puts the kids right into the situations that will most easily allow them to meet new friends.

Since I am NOT a Child Psychologist, I can’t comment on the psychological effects from a medical standpoint.  However, when I was a kid, we moved a few times, including cross-town moves and one from Michigan to Virginia.  All of our moves happened during the summer…  My Dad was a school teacher, so move coincided with his contract renewals…  And each time, I recall that I didn’t really begin making friends in earnest until school started.

Just this year, our family moved…  And we did it right after the end of the school year.  Had we been able to influence the timing of our move more, we might have tried to push it back to the beginning of the school year.  We did consider making the move shortly before the end of the school year, but it wasn’t practical for us.

The result was that my older son spent the majority of the summer not really knowing many kids in the new neighborhood.  He met a couple of them at the pool or riding bikes in front of the house…  but for the most part, he didn’t meet many new kids.  Granted, he had a VERY busy summer.  But by the end of the first day of school, he was much more integrated in the neighborhood.  In fact, after school, he was out riding his bike with all of his new friends…

So, don’t just assume that kids can’t effectively move during the school year.  It might actually be easier on them socially.  Educationally is a different matter.  In some cases, it might be very easy.  In others, it could be a tough transition for the child.  However, the same could be true in moving during the summer.  Moving into or out of a district that is very performance oriented can be a total shock for someone coming out of or going into a more laid back district or school.

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