Greetings,

I am in the process of readying my home for sale in Flower Mound, Texas
at the beginning of next year. To that end, we are trying to get some
relative comps to get a sense of where the neighborhood is selling at
(prior to listing).

One of the things that we have tried to find access to (unsuccessfully)
is information on recent sales in our neighborhood (Bridlewood) that
are relatively recent (within the last 3-6 months). I have gone to the
HomeGain site, but that data is over a year or two old and it does not
contain sales within my neighborhood.

I realize that we can get this information from our future listing
agent, however, I would like to have this information prior to
interviewing agents to have our own gauge of value.

Any suggestions or sites with access to this information would be
greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

"sprtan" writes:
I realize that we can get this information from our future listing
agent, however, I would like to have this information prior to
interviewing agents to have our own gauge of value.

Interviewing a bunch of agents and comparing, is unfortunately the
only way to get reliable recent home sale data and good comps.
Or... you can pose as an interested purchaser with some random agent,
and ask them to tell you about homes withing a given price range in
your town with given specs, and that can give you a feel. Or to
search on realtor.com and try to lock down to your area and the size
home.

The other way is to be very patient and eye property transfers from
the local paper, but righ tnow, they're recording July sales at least
here in my county.

Seeing as I haven't heard of Flower Mound TX despite having lived in
the state for a few years, it might be a pretty closely knit group of
Realtors though.

--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

"Todd H." wrote in message ...
"sprtan" writes:
I realize that we can get this information from our future listing
agent, however, I would like to have this information prior to
interviewing agents to have our own gauge of value.

Maybe your county has an online CAD. Put this in google. __________ county
CAD and if you get a hit go to the home page and it should have a facility
where you can see what all the property in the country is valued at for tax
purposes. And that's the price most buyers will start negotiating at. It
your county is not online, go to the tax office or look at your tax receipts
and go from there.

Thanks for the insight.

We actually do have a CAD. The challenge in our area is that due to
the Homestead Act, many folks (including me) have managed to
successfully suppress our home values for tax purposes over the years.
Comparatively, the actual values that homes have listed for (and I
suspect sold for) are much higher.

I do like the idea of getting with a realtor (I could probably use the
same one that sold my last home in the area) and just asking him to do
a comp pull for my neighborhood. I have pulled several listings in the
sub that have been put up over the last 3-4 months just to get a sense
of what people are listing at within same sub/square footage/amenity
ranges.

On 21 Nov 2005 06:46:55 -0800, "sprtan" wrote:

Thanks for the insight.

We actually do have a CAD. The challenge in our area is that due to
the Homestead Act, many folks (including me) have managed to
successfully suppress our home values for tax purposes over the years.
Comparatively, the actual values that homes have listed for (and I
suspect sold for) are much higher.


I live in Flower Mound as well, and don't understand what you mean by
suppressing our home's values. The Homestead Act only gives us a
$15,000 reduction in value when computing school tax.

The values are low here due to both the market in the DFW area in
general (only 3 of about 100 "districts" have shown an increase this
year) and the fact that they are doing so much new construction
building in Wellington.

Fair point.

I guess what I was attempting to convey was the fact that due to the
Homestead Act (amongst other reasons), it has given many of us a
motivation to contest our tax values on an annual basis therefore
keeping them suppressed beyond what they might have been raised to
otherwise (I for one have benefited from this in that if I had let
nature take its course over the last 6-7 years, I would have a
signficantly higher appraised value than I do now).

Interestingly, in looking at the DCAD relative to some of the recent
listings, the listing amounts are signficantly higher than the tax
appraised amounts by a pretty wide margin.

It will interesting to see how this plays out in terms of sale.

On 21 Nov 2005 11:45:46 -0800, "sprtan" wrote:

Fair point.

I guess what I was attempting to convey was the fact that due to the
Homestead Act (amongst other reasons), it has given many of us a
motivation to contest our tax values on an annual basis therefore
keeping them suppressed beyond what they might have been raised to
otherwise (I for one have benefited from this in that if I had let
nature take its course over the last 6-7 years, I would have a
signficantly higher appraised value than I do now).

Interestingly, in looking at the DCAD relative to some of the recent
listings, the listing amounts are signficantly higher than the tax
appraised amounts by a pretty wide margin.

It will interesting to see how this plays out in terms of sale.

I guess I'm just not smart enough to contest the value. I knew you
could, but have never had a reason to, or so I thought. Thanks for
the info.

Also, please report back as to how you make out on your home.

sprtan wrote:
Greetings,

I am in the process of readying my home for sale in Flower Mound, Texas
at the beginning of next year. To that end, we are trying to get some
relative comps to get a sense of where the neighborhood is selling at
(prior to listing).

One of the things that we have tried to find access to (unsuccessfully)
is information on recent sales in our neighborhood (Bridlewood) that
are relatively recent (within the last 3-6 months). I have gone to the
HomeGain site, but that data is over a year or two old and it does not
contain sales within my neighborhood.

I realize that we can get this information from our future listing
agent, however, I would like to have this information prior to
interviewing agents to have our own gauge of value.

Any suggestions or sites with access to this information would be
greatly appreciated.

I don't think you really need recent sales info. I've been watching
real estate values in TX closely for the past two years, and AFAIK, the
housing market in the entire state has been flat to slightly negative
for close to five years. Sales prices from even two years ago should
still be up-to-date.

Of course, comps from a friendly realtor will answer this definitively.

Randy

Had a brief discussion with a local realtor yesterday. To an earlier
comment regarding presence of new build having an impact on resales, he
had a slightly different take.

Essentially, he indicated that there were only ~24 homes in inventory
in Flower Mound within the $450K-$900K range which he believed was low
(inlcuding new). Hence, many of the current listings are getting quite
a few showings and those that have sold are selling for reasonably
close to list (within 5-10%).

I am going to attempt to secure some comps within next couple of
months. Will keep posted. Thanks for the insights.