Catskills paradise
All the real estate courses I took told me there was a formula to figuring out a property’s fair market value. Find similar properties, add and subtract for features this home does or doesn’t have, and there you go - a clear picture of what the subject property should sell for.
Nowadays, not so much.
It should work, and maybe it does work in some markets…particularly markets where one house is very much like another.
But in the Catskills, one farmhouse may be something straight out of Architectural Digest, and another is home to nothing but raccoons and old newspapers. Down the road is a luxury log cabin, or maybe an abandoned house trailer. How do you compare?
A village home may be a diamond in the rough, an overpriced cubic zirconia, or a piece of glass.
The Parsonage
How about land, you ask? 15 acres on a country road should be similar to 15 acres on another country road, right?
Where’s the country road? Is it near a town perceived as “hot” or is it near a town seen as “depressed?” Are there views? Are utilities there or nearby? What about Internet?
All those factors influence a house’s value, too.
Plus there’s another variable to deal with these days: sellers who don’t realize the pandemic boom is over (at least for now).
In my Delaware County town, which is now considered a “hot” market, houses used to routinely sell for less than fifty thousand dollars. But that was in the eighties. It must have been a wonderful time to be a buyer.
When I moved here more than four years ago, one hundred and seventy to two hundred was the norm.
Those prices went up by a third to a half in 2021. Bidding wars became commonplace.
In summer 2022, we have two homes on the market for nearly nine hundred thousand dollars in this town. A farmhouse in the hills above town is being marketed for over two million dollars. And even houses that should be listed for no more than two hundred thousand dollars are listed at over three hundred.
What we don’t have are buyers willing to pay any amount to get a home in the country. More realistically priced properties get snapped up. I can’t even get buyers to look at them when they’re viewed as overpriced.
What do buyers want? First and foremost, a perceived “good price.” They want to feel like they made a smart investment. They’re not desperate, but they’re determined. They will wait for the right place at the right price.
After that, it looks like old houses are still popular among my buyer clients, but houses that need work are being passed by. It’s not just the work — it’s the cost of materials and the difficulty in scheduling a local contractor who has the time to do it.
There is still some call for the easy-care weekend home, a simple place in a beautiful spot for a good price. But that demand has cooled a bit, so some great places are still on the market.
Scenic Family Compound
Homes that started out with prices orbiting the planet are still active on the multiple listing service even after the prices have re-entered the atmosphere. After awhile, buyers assume something’s wrong if it’s still available. So it’s important to price your house well from the first.
If you’re a potential seller and you want to maximize your profit, all the old rules still apply.
For a house, Clean Out Your Stuff. Those capital letters are there for a reason. It’s important. Make the house look spacious, clean, and welcoming. Fresh paint is a good idea, always. Do a little gardening. Fix those nagging little issues you’ve been meaning to fix but haven’t. It could put another ten to twenty thousand dollars in your pocket when it sells.
If you’re trying to sell land, keep the access accessible — mow it, brushhog a building site — make it easy for a buyer to visualize a home there. Your land will stand out in a crowd, and it’ll sell before the parcel down the road.
Selling a business property? That’s tough right now. Investors are out there, but many are holding back, waiting to see what the economy does. So my clients price their properties well, and I market the heck out of them. My job is to be the town crier, making sure people know about an opportunity. Because someone, somewhere, is looking for this.
Octagon Farm
Or this.
Village Landmark
I take my own advice. It works.
I have a house to sell that was trashed by its tenants. The cost of cleaning out the junk they left behind, repairing the damage they did, and making it shine again made me feel sick, honestly.
But I spent it. Part of it was sentiment. I love that old house and I couldn’t stand to see it so sad. But part of it was professional confidence. I knew what it could look like, and I knew someone else would love it, too, if I did the work required to get it there.
And when I put it on the market, I priced it fairly. It was squarely where similar houses in town had sold. I knew it would appraise with any bank.
I had multiple offers over asking. Well over asking. I didn’t take the highest offer. I took the strongest offer. It should close next month.