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If you’re hoping to sell your home, knowing your property’s value is essential for pricing it right to make buyers bite. Or, maybe you don’t want to sell your home right now, but are just curious what your house is worth—and whether your real estate investment has risen in value (which would merit some much-deserved back-patting).
In either case, having an accurate grasp of your home’s estimated market value can come in handy. And there are a variety of ways to do that, many of which are free and easily within reach online. Here’s how to find that magic number, and why having an accurate estimate matters whether you want to sell your home or own it for the long haul.
One easy starting point with a home valuation is to enter your address into an online home value estimator, which will, within seconds, present you with a free estimate of what your home is worth, based on data such as its square footage and recent home sales in the area. For example, realtor.com’s home value estimator provides valuations from three different independent providers to ensure you have as much information as possible from a variety of sources.
When it comes to real estate clichés, “Location, location, location” has all other contenders (including “Not a drive-by!”; “Cash is king!”; “Is that your checkbook or are you just glad to see me?”; and “Worst house, best street”) beat by a mile. Not only has it been in use since at least 1926 (according to the New York Times), but it’s utterly and inarguably true.
More than any other single factor, when you buy a home in a good location, it’s usually a solid long-term investment. And being the unabashed optimists we are here at realtor.com®, we focus most on the factors that help maximize your home’s value. But hey, life—and real estate—isn’t always rainbows and unicorns. So this week we decided to take a look at the downers: those things that actually keep you from getting top dollar from your home.
The list itself probably won’t surprise you, but the numbers just might. Who would have thought that it’s a worse investment (by far!) to buy in a bad school district than near a strip club or a homeless shelter? Beyond strippers, that is.
So how’d we do it? We looked at home prices and appreciation rates in U.S. ZIP codes where a specific drag-me-down facility such as a power plant is present. For each facility, we calculated the drag, or a “location discount,” by comparing the median home price of the ZIP codes with that facility with the median price for all homes in the same county. We limited our scope to the 100 largest metropolitan areas, since rural communities have lower home prices and slower appreciation.
Keep in mind the difference between causation and correlation: Does having a cemetery or shooting range in the neighborhood cause home prices to drop? Or are those businesses drawn to the area because of cheap real estate? We don’t have a definite answer, but their presence is generally a sign that a neighborhood is the opposite of up-and-coming. Judge your investment accordingly.
The drag: 3.2%
Hospitals are awesome, right? Having a great one within easy access is just about every homeowner’s goal. But easy access is one thing, and being woken up by ambulance sirens—or, god forbid, medical helicopters—at 3 a.m. is quite another. Among homeowners who sold in 2015, those near a hospital generally got 3% less than an average home in the same county would get, based on our sales deed records and hospital location data from data.medical.gov. In the world of real estate price demerits, 3% isn’t a lot, so clearly plenty of people are willing to overlook some noise and chaos in favor of nearby medical care.
The drag: 3.7%
According to most research, it’s not the guns or the people who shoot them that the neighbors of shooting ranges object to most; it’s more the idea of the places and, in some cases, the noise of gunfire, especially outdoor gun ranges. More perceived problems: environmental concerns, including the lead that leaches off spent shells, potentially poisoning soil and water. Last year, a closed gun club in San Francisco triggered $22 million in cleanup fees, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. We used gun range locations from wheretoshoot.org.
The drag: 5.3%
There are more than 8,000 power plants across the U.S., according to the Environmental Information Agency. Much as we are grateful for the modern convenience of electricity (thanks, Ben Franklin!), the huge facilities spur more NIMBY (“not in my backyard”) movements than anything this side of waste treatment facilities. The most frequently cited reason: safety concerns. The perceived dangers of living near a power plant vary dramatically depending on type, from the seemingly harmless solar to the dreaded nuclear. In general, having a power plant in the neighborhood is associated with lower property prices.
The drag: 6.5%
Some people believe you get bad spiritual energy from living near a funeral home; some just dislike the traffic caused by service workers and funeral attendees; and others fear that the smoke from a crematorium is toxic. But plenty of folks just find them seriously creepy, an unpleasant constant reminder of our own mortality. Our analysis of property values near funeral homes listed on legacy.com seems to confirm the stigma. Properties near a funeral home see a 6.5% drop in price compared to all homes in the same county.
The drag: 12.3%
Call it superstition, call it irrational fear, but there’s an awful lot of people who find the prospect of living near lots of buried bodies unpleasant or downright terrifying (see: Funeral homes). To be fair, there are some people who seriously dig how quiet the neighbors are, but they’re outnumbered by the haters. To do the research, we used a list of federal and state cemeteries operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs and found that the median price of ZIP codes with a cemetery is about 12% lower than neighboring areas.
The drag: 12.7%
Homeless shelters can be unloved and unwanted misfits in residential areas. Even though there’s no rule that homeless shelters are usually accompanied by higher rates of crime, shelters do certainly attract motley groups of people, necessitate emergency calls, and require more police in otherwise quiet, safe neighborhoods. Shelter locations, listed on homelessshelterdirectory.org, are often limited to less prime areas in the city where home values are about 13% less.
The drag: 13.8%
Does a cluster of rental buildings—or lots of them—lower the property value in a neighborhood? Many homeowners have pondered this. While it’s hard to do an analysis down to every property, we found that ZIP codes with a higher-than-average concentration of renters have lower property values compared to the county they are located in—by 14%. The data are from the American Community Survey.
The drag: 14.7%
Catering to adult vices—and often (rightly) associated with loud music and less-than-savory visitors—a “gentlemen’s club” is an unwelcome neighbor on the block. We tracked nearly 2,000 strip joints listed on stripclublist.com and ranked the category high on our “unwanted” list. In one extreme case, the crime-plagued neighborhood of Washington Park in East St. Louis, IL—the ZIP code 62204—has 10 strip clubs.10!How do they all compete? It saw only a handful of homes sold in the past three years, with a median price of $10,000.
The drag: 22.2%
While a top-performing school is definitely a plus for your property value, a bad school is a complete, out-and-out disaster. A school where one teacher handles a class of 40 students with a slim graduation rate is usually an indicator of a deprived neighborhood. The median home price of ZIP codes with schools that receive a 1 to 3 rating (out of a possible 10) from GreatSchools.org is only $155,000.
Ready to make a Move?
Bardell Real Estate are the experts in helping you with your selling, buying or renting needs near Orlando, Florida. Make your Disney area experience a forever memorable one. Call us now to speak to a real estate agent.
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Your identity can be bought for as little as $1,192.58, a new study from Reviews.org shows. Scammers who steal identities and private information through data breaches sell the private information on the dark web, a collection of encrypted websites accessible only through special browsers.
And while you may be at more risk for identity theft depending on where you live, the danger doesn’t necessarily break down into regional categories, the study notes.
“With crime data, we’ve often noticed regional or population-based patterns that cause one state to have more crimes than another,” Reviews.org notes in its study. “But identity theft likelihood is a bit scattered. While certain states are at higher risk than others, there doesn’t seem to be a countrywide region or population-based pattern.”
Nevada has the highest reports of identity theft and personal data breaches in the country, according to the study. Iowa has the fewest reports of these crimes.
ake steps to keep your personal data safe. For example, use a virtual private network to access the internet so that your information is encrypted. Also, review this cybersecurity checklist from the National Association of REALTORS® to ensure you’re taking the necessary steps to keep yourself and your business safe from a breach.
Ready to make a Move?
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Demand for houses continues to skyrocket, according to a report from Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. Seasonally adjusted demand for houses during the week of June 1 through June 7 was 25% above pre-pandemic levels.
Kelman said that bidding wars have caused listings to move quickly, and sales prices are up 3.1% year over year. The percentage of newly listed homes to accept an offer within 14 days increased from 42% in May to 47% in June.
“Our abiding concern in May was about the number of homes for sale, but that’s improving too,” Kelman said. “After falling to 21% below last year’s level the week of May 25-31, new listings last week continued their recovery; last week’s new listings were 15% below last year’s level.”
One thing to come out of pandemic purchases is 3D tours and video-chat tours, as states placed restrictions on real estate practices while shelter-in-place order are in effect. According to the report, 15% of home tours are happening via video chat, which is 30 times higher than pre-pandemic.
Views of 3D scans skyrocketed on Redfin’s website, up 42% from April to May. According to the report, 25% of new listings in markets like Seattle and Orange County, California include a scan.
Agents from Seattle to LA to Philadelphia have been surprised that protests didn’t deter more buyers. “It has been a speed bump,” said Alec Traub, an LA-based team manager for Redfin. Hazel Shakur, Redfin Maryland agent, reports that “between the virus and now the protests, folks are not batting an eyelash.” What’s driving demand is low rates and, now, easing credit. According to Sarah Martin, a Redfin mortgage advisor in Washington DC, “credit has pretty much loosened up except for self-employed borrowers.”
And sellers, always more careful than buyers, are finally responding to increased demand. “A lot of what I’m listing are not new clients, but people I’ve met with over the past few weeks and months,” said Seattle Redfin Agent David Palmer. “I’ll be bringing on double-digit listings in the month of June and expect the same for July. Those people who were looking to get top dollar and wanted to wait to list until they could get the most buyer attention, they can definitely get that now.”
It’s also easier for buyers than sellers to accept the health risks of touring. “We’ve had a lot of clients who are going to list with us but they’re just not ready yet,” said Mr. Traub, the LA team manager. “Especially when you live in your house, it’s more difficult to let an open-ended number of people walk through until the home is sold. When you’re a buyer, you can control the number of listings you see in-person. I think a lot of people still don’t feel comfortable with that and what that means for their own health.” Adds Charles Davies, a Redfin agent in Philly, “If it’s vacant, I can get those listings all day long.”
Until supply catches up to demand, prices will rise. For the week of June 1 – 7, year-over-year growth in asking prices was up 9.9%, compared to 7.9% the week before, and 3.9% in January and February. Sales prices for the first week of June are up 3.1% year-over-year, an improvement from 1.3% in May, when offers from late March and April were still closing. The percentage of newly listed homes accepting an offer within 14 days of their debut increased from 42% in May to 47% in the first week of June.
The major theme of our conversations with agents across the country this past week has been about bidding wars. “It’s just bananas, with so few listings and so many buyers,” said Ms. Shakur, the Redfin agent in Maryland. “Having lived through the 2008 bubble, I just want to be cautious. Maybe it’s nowhere near the same size as it was in ’08, and maybe it’ll turn out not to have been a bubble at all. But buyers are desperate. If a property is in a desirable neighborhood, buyers will overpay. Bidding wars, escalations, no inspections, agreement to pay over appraised value, all of that’s becoming the norm.” Adds Mr. Palmer, the Redfin agent in Seattle. “Anything I’m pricing correctly right now is flying off the shelf.”
No one knows for sure how long this will keep up, but very tight credit in recent months has at least limited housing speculation; price increases have been the result of record-low mortgage rates and inventory. “One thing I’ve noticed on my listings are our seller dashboards,” Mr. Palmer said. The seller dashboard shows Redfin listing clients and their agents how much online traffic a listing is getting, and how digital ad campaigns for that listing are performing. “The views are up definitely for what I would normally see for a week’s worth of views compared to this time last year. Usually 1,000 – 1,500 views would be a solid week for your first week. I’m having listings hit that on the first day.”
Online interest in listings now takes many forms. As shelter-in-place rules subside in parts of the country, much of the demand for virtual showings is from relocating homebuyers who want to avoid a long drive or a flight to tour a home. Fifteen percent of tours are happening via video-chat rather than in person. This is half of its April peak, but still 30 times higher than it was pre-pandemic.
The popularity of three-dimensional scans has been even more durable, with views of these scans on Redfin.com increasing 42% from April to May. In markets like Orange County and Seattle, a quarter of new listings include a scan, and we now believe this will be the most popular way to virtualize a showing, with buyers preferring to move through the home at their own pace, whenever they want.
Many of these relocating buyers are pursuing the suburbs, or smaller, more affordable cities. “It’s odd, because I’ve got two different sellers moving to Oklahoma, both for jobs,” said Ms. Shakur, the Redfin agent from Maryland. “That big migration we’re all expecting, it’s beginning to happen. People are now moving more to the interior of the country. I also have a lot of clients who are retiring and moving down south to more tax-favorable states.”
“I think some sellers are now at the point where they don’t want to be in the city anymore or keep paying high prices to stay here,” said Mr. Traub, one of Redfin’s LA team managers. “A lot of people relocate to LA for work, but now they realize they could go back home and their money would go further, especially when they can work remotely.”
It has been a point of debate within Redfin whether the movements of people we’re now seeing are mostly to the outlying areas of the same city, or to entirely different parts of the country. What we can be sure of now is that this latter group of cross-country movers is already increasing in size, albeit only modestly: in April and May of 2020, 27% of Redfin.com users searched outside their metropolitan area, compared to 25% in April and May of 2019.
We now speculate that the flexibility to work remotely, combined with low interest rates, will lead to higher levels of home ownership in the U.S., which have mostly been declining since 2004. “With interest rates so low, a lot of people want to buy who are currently renting in the city,” said Redfin Boston Agent Elynn Chen. “They want to go somewhere for more space.”
Ready to make a Move?
Bardell Real Estate are the experts in helping you with your selling, buying or renting needs near Orlando, Florida. Make your Disney area experience a forever memorable one. Call us now to speak to a real estate agent.
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Stay-at-home orders to prevent the spread of coronavirus put a major dent in the number of contracts that were signed in April, The index of pending home sales dropped 21.8% in April compared to March as the coronavirus pandemic kept prospective home-buyers out of the market, the National Association of Realtors reported Thursday.
The good news for the market, though, is that sales activity has shown signs of a rebound. “In the coming months, buying activity will rise as states reopen and more consumers feel comfortable about homebuying in the midst of the social distancing measures,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.
Mortgage applications for loans used to purchase homes have increased on a weekly basis for six consecutive weeks now, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That’s a sign that buyers are lining up financing in order to march into the housing market.
The remaining question is whether sellers will follow. “Home sales could bounce back if sellers also enter the market with similar enthusiasm to buyers,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com. “Our latest weekly data shows an improvement in new listings declines, but inventory levels still remain well below levels seen this time last year.”
If the number of homes on the market remains constrained, so too will the number of sales, regardless of buyers’ demand.
Ready to make a Move?
Bardell Real Estate are the experts in helping you with your selling, buying or renting needs near Orlando, Florida. Make your Disney area experience a forever memorable one. Call us now to speak to a real estate agent.
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Over the last month, our lives have changed, and we are all trying to find our new normal! Together we can and will get through this time by supporting each other, especially the heart of our community – your local businesses. Local businesses are owned by your neighbors, they employ your neighbors, and they create the unique fabric of each community. They know their customers, develop relationships with their regulars, and find ways to give back. Now we must support them and help them thrive during this time.
Originally from York, England, Paul hails from a background in farming and machinery and was a successful self employed builder for 15 years before making the move to Florida in 2018 where he established ASAP Home Care & Repair. With an uncanny eye for figuring out problems and a pride in his work, Paul is now enjoying providing reliable service in the Sunshine State ranging from irrigation, painting, bathroom & kitchen renovations, decking, minor repairs, general maintenance and much more.… His caring attitude, a refreshing no nonsense approach and an unwavering desire to deliver quality workmanship, makes Paul a cut above the rest. Those looking for fast talking salesmanship need not apply!
1. Buy gift cards If you’re unable to visit your favorite store or restaurant, consider buying a gift card. Not only will you help their business, but gift cards will come in handy down the road when social distancing is no longer in effect. Not to mention, they make excellent gifts for birthdays and anniversaries.
2. Dine in/ takeout Most restaurants are open but are still offering takeout, pick-up, and delivery options. You can dine in or You can order from your favorite spot online or through food apps, like UberEats, Grubhub and Door Dash.
3. Keep paying your subscriptions If you have a steady income, consider paying your subscriptions for gyms, cleaning services, personal trainers, etc. even if they are temporarily unavailable. If you have a babysitter, hairdresser, barber, or business owner who depends on regular clients like yourself, think about continuing to pay them, even partial payments will help. You have no idea how much you’re helping those who are unable to work.
4. Shop locally Social distancing is in effect, but many local stores are Now open to their community. Small local businesses often carry a lot of the same products you find at the big chain stores. So, stop by and help them out by stocking up on the things you need. Many stores have online options, too, so you can still get what you need without leaving your house.
5. Hire someone for small projects Now is an excellent time to tackle some of those home improvement projects. If you need lawn care, landscaping, or anything fixed around the house, hire a local handyman, gardener or carpenter. Some home improvement and auto businesses are still available.
6. Online classes For those whose gyms and studios that are still closed, try their online classes and live streams. Personal trainers and health instructors have also switched to online platforms like Zoom and Google Hangouts. Some are running discounts, too!
7. Spread the word Do you have a hot tip on a local business whose product or service has made your quarantine life easier or more enjoyable? Take to social media and let your neighbors and friends know! Some people don’t know where to turn to get the things they want or need. Help a friend and share your suggestions and let them know about any special offers.
8. Donate You can never go wrong by donating to those in need, whether it’s online or with cash.
9. Write a good review If you’re unable to help financially, then use your words. You can help a business by giving them an excellent review and referring them to others. Customers gravitate to stores and services loved by others.
Ready to make a Move?
Bardell Real Estate are the experts in helping you with your selling, buying or renting needs near Orlando, Florida. Make your Disney area experience a forever memorable one. Call us now to speak to a real estate agent.
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