Certified Commercial Investment Member:

the highest designation in Real Estate.

I love the net! I found the appraised value of 3 out of 4 houses on my dead end. However the above described neighbors house is not listed on our street for some reason. I'll grab their address off their mailbox later today.

I wonder how closely appraised value follows CMA value? Like anything it probably depends on the market.

__________________
2005 Chevy Silverado, white on black.

"Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present Generation to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it."
— John Adams

Good job young Jedi. Now you can get the sold prices of 5 homes in the area that sold in a 3 month range, then get the assessed values at that time. Calculate the totals sold and assessed totals and you will get two multipliers divided those and you can use that to find market value using only the assessment data that is publicly available. it's rough and will never stand the test of court but it will get you within a couple percent.

Example 1. Coefficient of Dispersion of 30 Percent: Low Uniformity
Parcel
Number Assessed
Value Market
Value AV/MV
Ratio Absolute
Deviation
from Median
1. $120,000 $100,000 1.20 .40
2. $110,000 $100,000 1.10 .30
Median 3. $80,000 $100,000 .80 .00
4. $58,000 $100,000 .58 .22
5. $52,000 $100,000 .52 .28
Total Deviation 1.20

Total Deviation
No. Parcels
=
1.20
5
=

.24 average deviation from median



COD =
Avg. Deviation
Median Ratio
=
.24
.80
=

30 percent


http://www.orps.state.ny.us/ref/pubs/cod/2002mvs/reporttext.htm

your tax assessor might be on line also. Try googleing your county name and tax. If the records are on line they will often give you assessed value and transaction history.

I'm an idiot I spelled the street name wrong!

Anyway they bought it in 1999 for $145K. Wow a lot cheaper then I thought.

Appraised Value Assessed Value
232,000 162,400

Here are the stats: 5,092 sq ft of living space to. Its a big ugly box thats for sure.

Everything is online for Milford.

Jeff let me work on that forumula, I'm horrible at math.

__________________
2005 Chevy Silverado, white on black.

"Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present Generation to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it."
— John Adams

House 1
Sale Price $269,000
Appraised Value 135,300
Assessed Value 94,710

House 2
Sale Price $343,500
Appraised Value 189,600
Assessed Value 132,720

House 3
Sale Price $249,100
Appraised Value 142,200
Assessed Value 99,540

House 4
Sale Price $412,000
Appraised Value 228,900
Assessed Value 160,230

House 5
Sale Price $265,000
Appraised Value 154,900
Assessed Value 108,430

My neighbors house isn't a very good example, for this practice CMA. It is pretty unique. So here are 5 Cape Cods that all sold within about a week and a half of eachother.

So for the total sale prices $1,538,600/5=$307,720
Assessed value $595,630/5=$119,126

$307,720/$119,126=2.583

So does the mean I can just multiply Cape Codes assessed value by 2.583 and get a rough idea of market value?

__________________
2005 Chevy Silverado, white on black.

"Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present Generation to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it."
— John Adams

It depends on the kinds of duplexes and the kind of neighborhood. In our neighborhood, there is very little difference in price because people convert duplexes or triplexes back to single family regularly, since almost all the houses were built at the end of the 19th century as huge single family homes.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

1) It's not possible to predict which one will appreciate faster. In one sceario, there is a glut of rental housing and the rents stay relatively constant for five years even though the value of housing is on the increase. The single family house will have the edge because the two family won't have a rental increase in five years thereby limiting it's potential appreciation.

The opposite scenario is also possible..............the rents climb dramatically due to a shortage of housing and the duplex increases at a faster rate.

2) The duplex will most likely produce more rental income...........and the risk of a vacancy is dramatically reduced. The more costly the rental, the more difficult it is to find a tenant on a moment's notice. Renting high end single family homes is rarely profitable.

In the ideal scenario, the rents pay for all of the cost of ownership, including the reduction of mortgage principal. This is typical of multi-family rentals but is atypical of single family homes.............although there are exceptions to everything.

In "most" cases, it's impossible to purchase and rent a single family home and break even out of the box unless a substantial down payment is utilized.............it's the nature of the beasts. The exception to this is found when you have the balls to purchase houses in the most undesirable neighborhoods where the value of the house is 1/2 the value in a better area. The ROI on such properties is excellent but you need to have a steel backbone and a ready means to collect the rent using "unconventional" methods. Personally, I've never used this approach..........it takes a certain "personality" that most people don't have.

__________________
Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt ----- Mark Twain

Yes, the home type does not play a factor unless it is unique to the area, a log home is a good example value per square foot is usually the same but two other factors come into play 1. Market time for a unique home increases but value is the same, on a appraisal stand point you would calculate the increased market time and deduct which is basically a mortgage payment. Forget get all of the mumbo jumbo factors like home types because in the scheme of things it matters very little when computing value. The key is like kind availability. 2. external influences, forced sales, divorce, death, creepy things about the house ect.


Your assessed value multiplier is similar to my area which is about 2.51.

Thanks all for the replies!

The consensus appears to be....

There is there is no gain in buying a duplex for the sake of appreciation but there might be a benefit for the sake of higher occupancy.

There are also hints that the best rate of return for rental houses are found in the $200K range, and that a range of standard fixups will make for the best returns. Is this correct? What fixups provide the best curb appeal?

The upper part of the market is not the place to be for rentals.

What about the general rate of appreciation? Knowing there are no ways to peer into the future, would a upper end house be more likely to appreciate quicker than a middle market house? Or is the market blind to these kinds of differences?

On the topic of real estate appraisal, Zillow is a new entity and pretty well acclaimed. They collect a bunch of info and integrate it into a “zestimate” for property appraisal. Their database is around 50 million homes. http://www.zillow.com/

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

The duplex offers the benefits of better cash flow in addition to higher occupancy rates due to less risk. It also offers the potential for less maintenance per square foot.

The best rate of return is found with houses in the $100-$150K range.......if you can find one that is habitable........and provided you can manage to collect the rents without showing up at the front door with a .45.

The higher the purchase price of a SFH, the worse the cash flow is likely to be.

In a downturn, or a soft economy, the upper market house is usually hit the hardest due to the limited number of buyers and the need to drop the price. In a booming economy, it's possible that the upper market house can do better on a percentage basis.........but it's not a certainty by any means.

Expensive houses are risky investments.............unless you live in one and cash flow is not a consideration.

__________________
Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt ----- Mark Twain