April 23, 2009 · 2:45 pm

Welcome to 2003

556 Riversville Road is reported as under contract today, after it dropped from $5.295 million to $3.695 – I assume the contract price was lower, which is interesting, because in 2003 the sellers paid $3.5 million for the place and then poured in lots of money renovating it. If this price is typical of today’s market, and I think it is, then when pricing your renovated house, forget anything you spent on it and figure out what it was worth in 2002 – 2003 and there’s your price.

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5 responses to “Welcome to 2003”

  1. annon
    April 23, 2009 at 3:01 pm

    how do you figure out what it was worth in 2002-2003 if you bought it a long time ago?

    • christopherfountain
      April 23, 2009 at 4:09 pm

      I’d check the tax records, comparable sales, etc. A good real estate agent should be able to come up with a ballpark figure although, judging from houses are being listed at, most aren’t using anything close to that number. Either they don’t know how to calculate it or they’re still in a state of denial. Which could it be?

  2. Retired IB'er
    April 23, 2009 at 4:38 pm

    “A good real estate agent…”

    GOOD being the operative, but elusive, word as your own post points out about most realtors in the current marketplace.

  3. Walt
    April 23, 2009 at 6:16 pm

    A good real estate agent? Who wants to buy a bridge? Anyone? Anyone?
    But that is not why I am here, Chris. This is from the attached article:
    “Millions of people jobless. Billions of dollars in bailouts. Trillions of dollars in U.S. debt. And yet, for the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is on the right track.”
    Here is the article:
    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_100_DAYS_AP_POLL?SITE=ININS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
    So. Tell me my all knowing friend. What am I missing?
    Anyway, enough on that.
    OFF TO WORM!!!!
    Your Pal,
    Walt

  4. OG
    April 23, 2009 at 8:17 pm

    I just found out my house is worth what I paid for it in 1998! I paid $500K for, did a $500K renovation for an all in cost of ONE MILLION DOLLARS (added a master suite, tripled the size of the kitchen, moved some walls around, all new Marvin windows, siding, new bathrooms, etc)! Similar houses in my neighborhood have sold for $2-2.6mm range a couple of years ago (these same houses sold for $1.3mm when I bought my fixer-upper in ’98).

    Today I got a letter from Chase telling me that my $500K home equity line of credit has been reduced to a $232K line because my estimated home value is only $1,021,000 using a “proven valuation method”. Thankfully, I have never drawn on this line of credit, and honestly don’t even need it. But I am a bit shocked to think their appraisal is so low? They must be wrong. We are talking about 3900 sq ft in OG in a good location.