Zillow doesn't believe in my area. But I did check the county assessor's office website earlier today and discovered two interesting tidbits. First, the valuation on our house (3bdr/2ba, 1600 sq.ft., no garage) is about $141,000, which is pretty much exactly what we paid to build it. Well, actually we paid less, because our $150,000 included the land, which was $28,000. Now, that's tax assessment, not realty appraisal, which was $195,000.
So, then, secondly, our neighbor's house across the street (3bdr/2ba, 1700 sq.ft., two car garage) is valued on the assessor's site at $156,000 only a little more than ours.
I find this encouraging, because our former neighbor the builder sold it to our new neighbor for $256,500 last month. It was on the market about six months, I think. So that's a good indicator for our market even still. We're a vacation area, so we still have a not bad real estate market.
Not that we're going to sell, assuming life continues apace. But it's good to know where the equity sits. We have quite a bit to begin with because of the deals we got and favors we called in. But it looks like the market is holding up and is maybe even a little bit favorable for us. The appraiser when he was here expressed doubt that the neighbor would get his asking price (which I swear was less than he got in the end) so it's good that someone did feel that it was valued appropriately.
The only thing I think can really fuck with the SW market (in non-primary cities, like Phoenix, ABQ and SF, which have a whole bunch of different things driving the market) is water. It's poor enough that even keeping up with the housing bust, it is way behind. LC kinda is still in boom, mainly snowbirds/retirees fleeing the Gulf and CA's markets. But they are mainly buying new construction, and few of the locals can afford that. Seriously, I think 1/3 of the working pop is employed by the public schools, and no way in hell can they afford the new stuff. Hell, even NMSU employees would have issues.
And wells are going dry on the mesas.
Yeah, water's definitely an issue. And our neighborhood is part of the problem, extending utilities instead of infill.
Someone is selling a house on my street, which was originally a 2 bdrm, 1 1/2 story exactly like mine, but they renovated the 1/2 story into a full story (adding an extra bedroom),and they are asking $108k more than I paid for mine a year and a half ago. It still only has one bath and it's on the first floor, so the other upgrades must be fab.
You should go look! And report back.
This creeps me out a little but mostly makes me laugh: [link]
Okay, I'm finally home from a stressy day at work and I can't go in Reality or Procedurals because I haven't had a chance to watch Bones or PR yet, and now I come in here and have to ignore all the scary real estate talk. Why isn't it all about meeeeee?
Here's something non-stressy - I think I've found my sister-who-has-everything's Christmas gift... [link]
She is a Coke (a-Cola) fiend who spends a lot of time at her computer. It's perf, right? So funny. And cute. And ridiculous and random. This is a fun site.
Fuckme, the feral kitten my parents tried to do a trap-neuter-release on, as a good deed? Died in surgery. Dad is sad.
I HATE this fall.
Ah, sara, that is so sad.
