Tag Archives: California

Improving Online Home Valuations?

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This past week, Top Producer quietly rolled out a home valuation tool, called HomeInsight, for a few markets in California and Washington*. I was not part of developing the tool, but I like it enough to pass along the link to Rain City Guide readers before the local media picks it up.

What differentiates this product from others is that it not only includes sold data, but also real-time listing data. The result is a page of information for each home that includes:

  • an interactive map that gives details on ten similar nearby homes (5 that are for sale and 5 that have sold) and
  • dynamic charts that give the average/high/low listing price, the average/high/low selling time and the average difference between asking and selling price for the neighborhood of interest.

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However, as with all things that sound too good to be true, there is a catch. In order to pull live listing information, the servers pulling this data have to go through an agent’s connection with their local MLS. (Don’t ask me to explain why, and definitely don’t ask Robbie, but anyone reading RCG for a while knows that the MLS’ have rules!) The result is it takes 5 to 15 minutes for the request to go to the local Realtor’s Top Producer account and then for the Realtor to initiate a report that pulls the data off the MLS servers (yes, a server call to the local MLS is necessary each and every time a request for a snapshot is made). Consequently, the only way to get your snapshop is from a link sent via email about 10 minutes after you complete the form.

So, how do you get a market snapshot for your home? Simply go to HomeInsight and fill in the required fields. (Remember it is only available in a few places right now!*)

If you don’t want to fill in the form, live in another part of the country, or feel guilty about sending people like Jim Reppond a “false” lead, then you can also check out this dummy snapshot filled with made up data.

And as much as I hate disclaimers, it is important to note that these are my opinions and my currently employer is not responsible for what I write on Rain City Guide.

* This tool is currently only available in parts of California (Hemet, Huntington Beach, Laguna Niguel, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Mission Viejo and Norwalk) and Washington (Bellevue/Eastside, Bremerton, Everett, Federal Way, Greater Seattle, Puyallup and Tacoma)

Want to live in the Golden State? Bring lots of Evergreen State money.

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[photopress:180px_California_state_seal.png,thumb,alignright]I recently returned from my almost annual vacation in beautiful California to visit my family and a few famous real estate bloggers (Dustin & Andy). And it was interesting to note what I learned about real estate in the Golden State during my two weeks down there…

Non surprises 

Bay Area real estate is still expensive. That wasn’t surprising at all. It’s been that way as far back I can remember. During my coffee talk w/ Andy, we discussed how the San Francisco side of bubble bay has popped, and the Oakland side is peaking. 

LA traffic is still awful.

Small Surprises

Santa Barbara is even more expensive than Silicon Valley.

Camp Pendleton is the only thing separting San Diego from Los Angeles & Orange County. I hope for San Diego’s sake, the Marines stay put.

RedFin has finally invaded the Bay Area. I wonder who’s next? 😉

Bay Area traffic is catching up to LA.

Big Surprises 

Home values in Southern Ventura county (home to Dustin’s new employer) are on the ridiculous side of expensive. In fact, it’s Silicon Valley expensive. I wasn’t expecting cheap prices (after all, I did grow up in California), but I wasn’t expecting this!?

I didn’t expect Santa Ynez to be as expensive as it is. Maybe Wacko Jacko’s Neverland ranch has done to Santa Ynez’s property values, what Bill Gate’s house has done to Medina’s? My parent’s home town (Santa Maria) is comparitively inexpensive, but it’s about as pricely as the Seattle Eastside is (median price ~$450K).

San Diego County is downright cheap in comparission to it’s neighbors to the north. In fact, prices there are less than 10% more expensive than Bellevue! Maybe being next to the Mexican border is keeping prices low, but I would’ve expected San Diego to be second only to Santa Barbara and the Bay Area. 

So what other markets in the country (or the rest of planet earth for that matter) have surprising prices (both more expensive and less expensive than you might expect)? I’ve heard from more than one local realtor, that many out of state real estate consumers have sticker shock when they first come to King County. And I’m still surprised that Portland is so cheap compared to it’s nothern & southern big city neighbors.