A bit of color in some charts for your reading pleasure. This information is from the Ann Arbor Area Board of Realtors MLS run on a monthly basis, and includes all the Ann Arbor school district, single family detached housing only, no new construction or to be built, no condominium units. Data tracks from 1/1/19 forward and it includes several things that we watch as appraisers. Each has a small blurb before the chart. 1st is sales volume on a monthly basis. As expected, the market shows seasonality. Market is typically slowest towards winter and increases in the spring. It is easy to see belo ..read more

Challenging the results of the appraisal for mortgage financing The first thing to remember as a consumer or real estate agent, is that the client is the lender, not the consumer. Even though the consumer may pay for the appraisal, they are no more the client than is the credit reporting agency or title company hired directly by the lender. The lender obtains the appraisal to ensure that the collateral is adequate for the loan (remember the three C’s of credit, capacity, and collateral). The appraisal is for their benefit, but at the same time, the appraiser needs to complete a fair and suppor ..read more

We are so often bullish about our market, but is it as “hot” as news outlets like to believe? We certainly have a shortage of inventory, which does create pressure on acting quickly and agressively on well priced houses that are in “show-ready” condition. That does not mean that prices are rising exponentially, or even that much at all? Simple example is taking all sales of single-family houses that are already built, not new construction or “to be built”, and arrying on a monthly basis. This sample below includes everything in the entire Ann Arbor school district exposed through the local MLS ..read more

Our collective memories tend to be short. Maybe it is human nature? I cannot even pretend to understand why we forget the past or how it may predict the future. Not that long ago, the United States in general experienced a significant decline in property sales prices due to the Great Recession and the mortgage market fallout. Ann Arbor, the general community I have called my home for over 55-years, was not immune to the fallout. Ann Arbor is somewhat insulated from national market forces in that we are a university community, and the university brings with it a lot of stability due to student ..read more

Washtenaw County, like much of the nation, has a continued inventory shortage. This shortage is heavily concentrated in the starter market. Comparing the same period last year to this, the number of sales and listings have dropped across the board. At this time last year, 3,609 single family houses had changed hands through the MLS in a one-year period. Today the same parameters show 2,586 sales, or a decrease of over 28% in volume. Last year at this time, throughout the County, there were 483 available listings, but today there are only 288. The inventory shortage continues to be concentrated ..read more

The market statistics we get from the Board of Realtors is broad. It encompasses all properties, not segmented by school district or area, size, or any other factor. The December figures that came out a couple of days ago indicate a 7.3% increase in sales price, but if you do compare to the school district, it is not the same (also one month as opposed to one year). Point is that statistics depend on what is analyzed. Below is a direct comparison of all sales in the Ann Arbor school district excluding new construction and “to be built”. This information comes from data found in the Ann Arbor A ..read more

What is a comparable sale? A sales package left for the appraiser is welcome. Most appraisers appreciate the agent’s insights into the sales they used as comparable choices when they priced the home for sale. This is particularly the case if the agent had some knowledge of pet odors or peculiarities with one of the sales that looked like an obvious choice. Occasionally now, with photography, the sale presented itself in much better light than it actually was in reality. The MLS is after all, part sales tool. This is one reason you will get calls, emails and texts from appraisers asking about a ..read more

Often, buyers and sellers are under the impression that it is simple to price a house by its square footage. Nothing is further from the truth, unless of course, all the comparable properties considered are within a couple square feet of each other and have the same quality and condition and are in the same immediate neighborhood with no variation in the value of the site. Underneath all is the land. This means that a house that sits on a hypothetical 60×120 sqft site should have the same underlying value if the house were 1,000 sqft or 2,000 sqft. If land is selling for $50,000 for this 7,200 ..read more

Probate can be a complicated process for the personal representative, who likely only handles this type of situation once or twice in a lifetime. For some people, such as the attorney, or the agent who handles many estate related sales, the process makes sense. To the individual tasked with being the representative however, they likely only have a cursory understanding of the process. A proper assessment of the value of the decedent’s real property is particularly difficult for the layperson anyone who is unfamiliar with real estate transactions. When determining date of death values for the d ..read more

4/1/19 Mixing up my monthly run related to how the market is doing (not looking at prices, only supply and absorption). The current monthly stats, run today, show most markets with limited inventory compared to the past 12-months sales, with only Dexter and Saline running over three months’ worth of inventory. Both of these markets have an abundance of new construction and that is considered to be partly to blame for the higher supply levels. Since I started running the information including “to be built” properties months ago, I have decided to keep running this particular data in the same ma ..read more