NWHome.us's Discussions

Never pay in advance is the best practice.The compromise is: what does the contractor need the advance for?A well established and credit worthy contractor buys materials on credit; either with a credit card or an account at the supplier.  No credit?  Pay for the materials directly and avoid any profit by the contractor.  Pay them, or the supplier, for delivery and any time it took to get the order ready.Payroll?  What is their pay schedule?  In the worst case sit down with the supervisor on Friday afternoon, review the timecards and cut a check for the agreed upon hourly rate (cost plus the overhead, not the profit).There are a number of national franchise firms that are promoting this type (in advance) payment scheme.  Before you advance anything get the franchise headquarters on the phone and confirm that this is their policy.I spent over a quarter of a century as a general contractor and never needed to collect an advance.  Yes I ran into a couple of clients who had a hard time pulling the green out of their pocket, but I found that as long as I answered their phone calls and questions and did the work that we agreed upon doing, I was paid.I view profit like a tip.  There is no need to collect it until the job has been proven to be well done.  I differentiate this from overhead which is the cost of doing business.

Nice to have you back Crystal.  Have you tried using Postlets.com?  It will syndicate your listing to a number of other sites.  Have you found any other sites that attempt to calculate property values across the US?  If you have, can you share them with us?I notice that you haven't taken advantage of creating your own estimate for your home.  You'll find some basic categories that should help you distinguish your home.  Be realistic about the money that you spent and when you did it.  You can also look at Remodeling Magazine's 2008 charts for Cost vs Value at their website: www.remodeling.hw.net/2008/costvsvalue/national.aspx.  These may help you understand how Zillow begins to arrive at their values for each dollar spent.You will also find in creating your own estimate that you have the opportunity to choose some comps.  Watch your Zestimate change by trying a few different properties.  You mentioned that you had a CMA done by a local real estate company.  How much have they seen the market change in the last quarter?

It sounds as though the focus is "Value."Because Value is best represented by a sales price it would be more interesting to see what the Zestimates are for the homes that were described in your CMA as being SOLD.What that should tell us is how long it takes the county to update their records and push the information to Zillow.What do you say?  What are the addresses and date of sale for the SOLDS from your CMA?

Are you saying that the CMA that you received from the reputable real estate firm had just 2 SOLD listings on it?  What we are looking for are the listings that were identified by the RE company as being SOLD on their CMA.  What I'm suggesting is that you refer back to the baseline that you were given when you started this process.Why would they have included 238 Sandy Beach Dr?  It isn't waterfront.  If this is what you are working with, it is no wonder you are having a difficult time determining value.  You have a real challenge on your hands.Anthony used the term "objection."  Are you in sales?  Does this specific sales term have any meaning in this situation?If your prospective buyers are objecting to your price, and using Zillow as a basis for this objection, I suggest you educate them (challenge the objection) with the facts that you have been describing so far in this post.  If I were representing a buyer I would use any means possible to reason that your listing price is too high.  Understanding the limits of any objection gives you nothing but strength in your negotiating position.The buyout clause in one of my real estate partnerships requires that each partner procure a certified summary appraisal of the property.  If the appraisals are vastly different the clause requires that a third-party appraiser does their own summary appraisal and reviews both of the others.  The parties must agree to this process in advance because the third appraisal determines the selling price.  How badly do you want to sell these properties?  Maybe this is an idea that a buyer would agree to that would overcome the objection to price?

1). Of the 12 Solds: can you not add any of them to your comparable list where you are building your own estimate?  If not, it sounds as though they are pulling (the comps) from a different set of criteria than your CMA.    Zillow (DaveG); How flexible can we be in describing comps?  Can we go to a home and claim it as a comp somehow?2). Of those 12 solds: how do their individual Zestimates look now that they have had some time to go through the system (from county recording to Zillow upload)?  I'm coming back to the premise that the truest value is described as the result of a sale, not an opinion from Internet. Internet is disadvantaged because he/she isn't out looking at the properties the way we are.  We just need the tools to educate him/her.  Thank God for that or real estate professionals would be out of a job (aside from navigating the contractual deadlines and making an offer close, however).3) If Zillow comes up in your showing today, I'd recommend that you send them to this thread to help them understand that if they are concerned about the price, they should make an offer and have an agent or appraiser confirm it for them.

CW, Yes, both the owner's estimate (I do this for my own clients) and the Zestimate show up.  Don't you think that is a good example of transparency?  I think we all have warts.The fact that your own estimate is well within the margins or error that show up in the link that Anthony included (you can also find interesting details at the bottom of every page in "RE Market Reports") would indicate to me that you may be priced fairly.  That is a very good start. It doesn't mean, however that the right buyer feels the same way. Why should we or the buyer believe your estimate?  We don't.  It really doesn't matter.  If I was representing a buyer I'd jump up and down all over your estimate and the Zestimate in every imaginable fashion.  Don't take is personally, but that is my job.True story: My seller swore at a potential buyer the other day because they didn't make an appointment to look at his house, even though that request was written all over the listing on the MLS.  They were peering into the windows as he was cooking breakfast.  It doesn't matter what the listing price is or what the appraisal is (we have one), or what the Zestimate is; that prospect probably isn't coming back.  Now I think that is extreme; but the point is that an appraisal, CMA or Zestimate palls before a mutually agreed upon price with another person. If you swear at your buyer, they may decide to exit but you may not have to; the color of the kitchen may not work for them.  I think it is far more important to focus on mutual acceptance than it is on what Internet has to say about anything.And as a Realtor, getting mutual acceptance on a property only means to me that I'm about ¼ of the way to getting the property closed (sold).  My pet peeve is people believing that their place is sold when all they have is an agreement to purchase.  The objections and opportunities for incompetence have just begun.

>To make matters more interesting and bizarre, the comp that recently sold down the road, was previously advertised on Zillow as being 3 bdrm and with more sq footage, than its current Zillow listing.Crystal, How about looking at the county website and verifying that the county has updated their record of the sale. How long ago did it close?  As much as Zillow would like to believe that they are updating data from listings, you have to believe that one of the data sources has to trump the other.  We run into this issue when we use Postlets.com (or any other syndicator) and our national company to upload data to their site. My own experience has been that the data is a little buggy on prioritizing syndication.  But hey!  Their database is better than any other that I have access to and if you can educate your buyers as to its limitations, you win!Good luck tomorrow.

CWI don't believe your estimate because it is my job to doubt it if I represent a buyer.  If I were representing you, the seller, I've said that it is a good sign that you were able to get it to approximate your current listing price.  If a buyer brought the issue up I'd say "Hey, the data that Zillow uses didn't include the remodel that we did to the basement".  Look what happens when I have included it. If they brought up some other comp that they found on Zillow, it is a perfect example of why Internet is interesting, but doesn't have all of the answers.  As a side note: this is why I personally don't practice dual agency.  When I work for a client I need to have my advocacy perfectly clear.I don't think you wasted your time and I don't think CL will waste his/her time by looking at the Zestimates for the 12 SOLD properties that were on the original CMA. They give you the knowledge that you need to counter objections by prospective buyers.  Both exercises represent the due diligence that is takes to establish a current listing price for a home.  Agents also use the information that we can glean from our own MLS databases, the county records and the tours that we do to develop a sense of how properties are being priced and what people are willing to pay at the moment.  (Pending sales are up in King County for the 3rd month!  YAHOO!)  Zillow is a small part of the puzzle; it's right up there with the grain of salt.  I, in this market, also calculate for my sellers what sort of appreciation they have realized over the time that they've owned their property.  For those who have owned a home for more than 5-6 years, this usually turns out to be a tidy percentage.  If that percentage turns out to be 10-15 % and the neighbor just bought their home 2 years ago, and has been transferred, guess who's in the driver's seat.  Does my seller really need to make 15%?  Why not 12%?  Historically that percentage is about 6%, so why not take 7%?  Or haven't we learned anything about greed. And all of this is another way to calculate value that Zillow has no way of capturing data for.

CWI don't believe your estimate because it is my job to doubt it if I represent a buyer.  If I were representing you, the seller, I've said that it is a good sign that you were able to get it to approximate your current listing price.  If a buyer brought the issue up I'd say "Hey, the data that Zillow uses didn't include the remodel that we did to the basement.  Look what happens when I include it." If they brought up some other comp that they found on Zillow, it is a perfect example of why Internet is interesting, but doesn't have all of the answers.  As a side note: this is why I personally don't practice dual agency.  When I work for a client I need to have my advocacy perfectly clear.I don't think you wasted your time and I don't think CL will waste his/her time by looking at the Zestimates for the 12 SOLD properties that were on the original CMA. They give you the knowledge that you need to counter objections by prospective buyers.  Both exercises represent the due diligence that is takes to establish a current listing price for a home.  Agents also use the information that we can glean from our own MLS databases, the county records and the tours that we do to develop a sense of how properties are being priced and what people are willing to pay at the moment.  (Pending sales are up in King County for the 3rd month!  YAHOO!)  Zillow is a small part of the puzzle; it's right up there with the grain of salt.  I, in this market, also calculate for my sellers what sort of appreciation they have realized over the time that they've owned their property.  For those who have owned a home for more than 5-6 years, this usually turns out to be a tidy percentage.  If that percentage turns out to be 10-15 % and the neighbor just bought their home 2 years ago, and has been transferred, guess who's in the driver's seat.  Does my seller really need to make 15%?  Why not 12%?  Historically that percentage is about 6%, so why not take 7%?  Or haven't we learned anything about greed. And all of this is another way to calculate value that Zillow has no way of capturing data for.

CWI didn't realize you had an agent working with you. It is wise to participate in the work yourself so that you understand the process a little better and maintain some responsibility for the outcome.  It sounds as though you are doing that which is fantastic.  The main point: KNOWLEDGE.The point of looking at the Zestimates for sold properties that were presented on the original CMA is that one would assume that those closed a little while ago and have had time to go through the recording and uploading process at the county.  The question is; has the county uploaded that new data to Zillow.  I think what you will find is that it will take from 3 to 6 months for that data to get to Zillow (somebody correct me if I'm wrong).  This is like bureaucracy at its finest, municipal government!  So if the property (comp) sold six months ago it might be reasonable to assume that the Zillow data may have been updated and that the Zestimate should be reasonably close to what it sold for (paid price as you call it) +/- any market change that they have recorded since the sale.  I'm curious to see if that is the case.  What is the accuracy lag in your county: 3, 6, 12, 18 months?So the market change is an interesting number……  I'm assuming that it is tied to some sort of variation in median price in the local market.  What they will tell you is that their median numbers are exact.  I get a chuckle out of that.How did the showing go?  Did they have any objections?