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Figuring Out A Property's True Value in this Market Can Be Difficult

  • April 20th 2009

by Mark Wellborn

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The Washington Post had an interesting article this weekend on the difficulty that both home buyers and sellers face in determining how much a property is worth with so many foreclosures and short sales flooding the market.

The article points out that the data for home prices on a number of valuation sites can be very skewed as the inventory of homes on the market regularly include a glut of distressed properties that bring down the value of surrounding homes.

From The Post:

Foreclosures and short sales are another complicating factor. Appraisers generally don’t want to use distressed sales as comparable sales, but if the market is almost exclusively made up of foreclosures and short sales, the appraiser has to decide how to use them.

“If all that has sold is foreclosures and short sales, then they are the market, so that’s what your home is going to be compared to,” Bruce Flanagan [of Bethesda-based Flanagan Associates] said.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/figuring_out_a_propertys_true_value_in_this_market_can_be_difficult/816.

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