Are You Getting the Full Value for Your House?
Price-Per-Square-Foot. Who’s Square Footage Number?
If you want to get the full value for your home, make sure it is measured before you discuss the price. If you don’t, you may be leaving money on the table. The market is low enough and you don’t need any extra help bringing the value down. Get the full value for the fair size of your home. Ask your agent if they measured the house, had someone else measure it, or if they took the square footage details from public records. If they are using tax records, find a new agent. It’s your money…
MEASURE IT FIRST OR PRICE IT WRONG!
Appraisers from all across the country told us; “Agents don’t measure houses. They take the square footage info straight from the tax department. It’s just the way it’s done these days.” The square footage in tax records is notoriously inaccurate. Everyone knows it, but they use it anyway.
Getting the accurate square footage details is NOT the tax department’s responsibility. Listing agents have always provided square footage. At least until they discovered online tax records. In the mid-nineties, everything started to change and it has spiraled downward until it is totally out of control. The MLS is NOT the source of real estate information it once was. Now, it is a reflection of advertisements, painting pictures to sell homes. Important things, like square footage, often show only the details listed by the local assessor’s office.
The MLS was once the “most trusted source of real estate information in the world.” Now, it is more an advertising website, not the “members only” site it once was, but published for the public. Like hundreds of others; all of which use the property details listed from public records and who are all fighting to attract home buyers – Zillow, Trulia, Yahoo, etc..
Up to one-third of all transactions are being affected by low appraisals. In a market with fewer transactions already, we can’t afford to lose any. This is a fight for survival!
Want to see for yourself if this can possibly be true? Call a few experienced appraisers (in any county, in any state) and ask them about the problems with Realtors®, MLS, and inaccurate square footage. They see it every day and this one issue can make their jobs almost impossible. The appraisal industry has been force-fed massive reforms. The HVCC may be gone now, but the complete appraisal business model is gone. All these HVCC changes (which did no more than put a Band-Aid on the dyke), without the government even acknowledging that the appraisal industry can only provide accurate appraisals when they have accurate MLS data (including accurate square footage details, and something MLS doesn’t provide even half as much as they have in the past), have done little to improve the “quality” of the appraisal industry. Don’t think the size or square footage of a house can make that much difference? For the skeptics, I offer you this simple challenge.
