Why Curtis Park Home Appraisals are Difficult Today

Classic 1924 bungalow contains vintage details with tasteful dates.

People have all kinds of thoughts about Curtis Park home appraisals, and I’m not about to argue with them if I don’t have to. When I am forced to argue, though, I tend to go whole hog. I appeal to my target’s common sense, which of the 6 senses is always the most important. You see, the problem is low inventory, coupled with the way we systematically prepare appraisals. When there are no comparable sales to pick a sales price, none to substantiate value, naive buyers might gravitate toward sales that are not really comps.

They will point to that one house, for example, which is located on a busy street, where the bus runs and stops in front of that particular home. That is not a similar location. That is a bad location. Buyers won’t add $50,000 of value for a good location because they don’t know how to do it. Even if you say to them, would you pay $50,000 more NOT to have the bus stop in front of your house 30 times a day, they might say no, they would not, even when they would.

I struggled with such a sale in Curtis Park. The appraisal came in $50,000 low. The sellers had purchased the home 4 years ago for about $600,000. Prior to market, they replaced all the carpeting on the lower level with hardwood flooring. I ran the trends that clearly showed strong price increases over the past four years in Curtis Park, but the buyer didn’t care. I considered tightening my hands around the guy’s neck while screaming in his face: Do you think values have fallen over the past 4 years? Prices have gone up and up and up.

Because I didn’t want to make my sellers pay for the buyer’s problem, we made the buyer pay for a new appraisal. And it was the buyer’s problem that his lender hired an appraiser from another city who felt he was somehow capable of conducting Curtis Park home appraisals when he was not. It was also not our fault that the buyer needed to finance his purchase.

With cash, we get a much truer picture of market value. People with cash want to make every penny count. I knew I was right on the market value of that home in Curtis Park. I also knew not to use a couple of distressed sales as comparable sales because, thank goodness, in a normal market like today, distressed sales are not comps. With this particular sale, the buyer had enough money to bridge the gap between the appraised value and our list price but refused.

That was his loss. Too bad. Because we turned around and sold the home to cash buyers who recognized the value. I’m Old School about real estate values. I was taught 40-some years ago that market value is the price at which a seller is willing to sell and a buyer is willing to purchase. It’s not what some doofus appraiser who doesn’t really know Curtis Park thinks about Curtis Park home appraisals.

Almost every home in Curtis Park is unique. Two homes side-by-side with similar square footage can vary wildly in market value. This is why sellers should hire an experienced Sacramento Realtor who knows how to sell real estate and understands older, established neighborhoods. In the end, my sellers got what they wanted, and that’s all that really matters to me.

2557 5th Av, Sacramento, CA 95818 closed escrow on August 29th at $682,500.