Buying or Selling a Home/Condo

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Expert: - 3/13/2007


Question
Hello :), I`m interested in buying a condo in my home town of Kettering Ohio.  I heard on the radio (Clark Howard) that right now the best thing to do is to find out the market  price of that condo one year ago and subtract 30%.  Example, If one year ago the condo was valued at 100K I should offer 70K.
 Is this reasonable considering the market right now? How would I go about finding out the market value of that condo one year ago ?  Any info would be appreciated

Answer
Dear Steve;
I would first like to question the validity of the radio show host.  Is he speaking for the entire real estate community?  My suggestion is to call a few real estate agents and particularly those who are familiar with the condos in the area in which you are interested.  I now that I am in a real estate market where homes sell for about 98-99% of their asking price.  Prices have not fallen at all!  A real estate agent will be happy to pull sales history for the condo development for you and will therefore be able to show you what they went for a year ago and what they are selling for today.  If you prefer you can do the work yourself by going to the county recorder and looking through the register of deeds book for everything that has sold in the past year.  This will give you an idea of where prices were and where they are now since you will be able to trace the year through amount paid last year and amount paid most recently.

Good luck and best wishes.

~Jessica Bryan

Buying or Selling a Home

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Jessica Bryan

Expertise

buying and selling process such as:
General questions from first time buyers
How to market a home
Why choose a REALTOR
How do I find a REALTOR
Should I consider buying or selling without a REALTOR--how much can I save
Should I remodel or move
How much can I expect to gain by fixing up my home before selling
Helpful tips when selling
Helpful tips when buying
finding a good mortgage loan
what is the difference between banks, mortgage bankers, and mortgage brokers
Questions from the general public, people thinking about getting their real estate license, newly licensed.
Fellow professionals who have interests in networking and how to get started
What is a market evaluation and how does it differ from an appraisal what are the different loan programs
services a REALTOR can perform
when to use a lawyer
when to use escrow
what are the regional differences in the buying and selling process
what is the MLS and how does it work
how can the layman access information on the web--listings and other information
These are just a few of the questions. I can suggest that if I am unable to answer a question I will refer the inquiry to a source that can.

Experience

Anyone who is in this business and who dedicates oneself to professionalism has continued to take classes and along with it,additional credentials, awards and honors. I can list a host of them, but my greatest accomplishments happen to be those of getting first time buyers (who didn't think they could afford to buy a home)into a home of their dreams. The look on their faces when I hand over the keys is worth all of the hard work.

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