August 11

How to Determine Property Value

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How to Determine Property Value

Now, here we are again in Collington Station, which is sort of a typical suburban neighborhood, what you might call an upper class neighborhood in Prince George's County, and you can find these kind of neighborhoods all over the Greater Washington, DC region. Now to the average person, they would call this a neighborhood. We, as investors could call that a neighborhood or we could call it by its technical name, which is a subdivision. And as I showed you over at the Park and Planning Office, or the zoning office, all of the lots, all of the lots that all these houses sit on are about the same shape, same size configuration. Notice, there's two houses over my shoulder. Take a close look. On the surface, they look like two completely different houses. But if you actually take a little bit closer look, and I'm gonna step out the field of view so you can actually get a better look. But if you take a look at both of those houses side by side, you're gonna see they're the exact same house. Take a look. Now notice what I'm talking about. Even though one house is white with green shutters and one is brick with green shutters. Look at 'em. They're the identical house, almost the mirror image. One's got the garage on the left side. One has the garage on the right side, but it's the same house with one slight subtlety, which is the house on the left actually has a little bump out. Okay, you see that? That little bump out there. It could be like a garden room or just a sort of an extension off the house. It was probably built by the builder when the house was originally built. It was probably an option. That little bump out could increase the value by a couple thousand dollars. But at the end of the day, these two houses are the exact same house on the inside. They are five bedroom colonial houses, okay. So understand what I'm talking about when I say that 80% of the value of any single family house in America is determined by the neighborhood. And it's these little subtle differences, like the little bump out, or the corner lot. That's what increases the value or determines a higher value or lower value. If one house needed a lot more repair, then you could say, okay, I've gotta deduct some money. But this is the reason why once you understand the value of the neighborhood, it is so much easier to do single family houses in terms of doing things like wholesaling houses, bird dogging the right way and rehabbing houses, 'cause once you understand the value of the neighborhood, you're 80% of the way there and the extra 20%, or that additional 20%, that's the individual characteristics of what's specifically happening with that individual house. But as a case in point, if these two houses behind me, let's say this neighborhood was a $500,000 neighborhood, you would not expect to see one of the houses selling for $600,000. It's just not gonna happen. If this is a $500,000 neighborhood, one house might sell for 485, one house might sell for 505 or 515, depending on what's going on inside the house. But generally speaking, if this is a $500,000 neighborhood, all the houses in this neighborhood are gonna sell around the $500,000 price point because 80% of the value of any single family house in America that was built after 1926 is gonna be determined by what's going on in the neighborhood. All the lots are the same. Essentially all the houses are the same, and what's happening is the individual characteristics, like is it a finished basement, not a finished basement. Is it a corner lot, like the house behind me? Go ahead and take a look at this house right here, Darius. Is it a corner lot? If it's a corner lot, that's gonna get some additional value, but take a look down the street. Just take a look right on down the street, Darius. If you really pay close attention, you're gonna see that all the houses are basically the same model, with slight differences, very slight differences. There are only about four or five basic models, and one time, the house garage is on the left side. In some cases, on the right side in some cases, it's red brick. In some cases, it's brown brick. In some cases, it's what's called buff, or white, brick. But the bottom line folks is that 80% of the value is based on this neighborhood. It's based on where this house is located. It's based on the fact that all the houses have essentially the same size lot. Now, I guarantee you there's gonna be a slight premium, again like if you turn around over here, this part of the neighborhood is on what's called a cul-de-sac, okay. And usually houses on a cul-de-sac have a slight increase, or a slight premium in value, versus these houses over here which are all sort of lined up just like little toy soldiers down the street. But the bottom line folks, is that if this is a $500,000 neighborhood, all of the houses are gonna trade within about the same price. The value of the neighborhood can go up and the value of the neighborhood can go down, which is why it's critically important that you get your own direct access to the Multiple Listing Service. It's only through the Multiple Listing Service that you can actually see what's going on in the neighborhood. If I wanted to find out what was going on in terms of values either going up or values going down, I'm not gonna find that out by walking around the neighborhood. If I were to knock on all these doors and say, Hey, tell me about the neighborhood. They're all gonna say, it's a great neighborhood. It's a safe neighborhood, but they can't tell me what the last two houses in this neighborhood sold for. The only way I can get direct access to that information is to look at what's going on in the Multiple Listing Service. The Multiple Listing Service tells me whether or not values are going up or values are going down or values are staying flat, okay? Now here's the key. When you're first getting started as an investor, you wanna get out, drive the car, park the car, and then go around and look at the neighborhood and get to know the neighborhood. Then you wanna start your research by going online to see what's going on in the Multiple Listing Service. Again, I can't tell whether values are going up or down simply by walking the neighborhood. I can tell if it's a good neighborhood, so to speak. I can tell you if, you know, basically the houses are well kept. I can tell you again, in this neighborhood, these are what I would call pretty houses, but you can make a lot of money in pretty houses. You can make a lot of money in ugly houses. The main thing is to get to know what is the neighborhood and where does the neighborhood start? And where does the neighborhood end. Any properties or any subdivisions or any neighborhoods that were created after 1926, which of course is when the Euclid versus Ambler decision was handed down by the Supreme Court, they're gonna follow the zoning code that was created and the outline of what is an appropriate zoning code in that Supreme Court decision, which basically means that all the houses in this subdivision, in this neighborhood, are gonna be about the same size, about the same shape, and they're gonna sit on the same size lot. So if I'm talking about a subdivision like this one, Collington Station, which has 650 houses, this is a neighborhood, and all I need to do is go into the Multiple Listing Service and say tell me what's going on in Collington Station. And this is exactly why, once you understand this business and you understand this key secret, you can actually begin to buy and sell, or buy and wholesale, or buy and flip houses online from home, sitting in your underwear, if that's what you wanna do. And once you come out here and look at the neighborhood, the neighborhood's not gonna change that much over the next couple years. It's just not gonna change. Especially a neighborhood like this one, where all the houses are built, yeah, I'm gonna point out to you the fact that there's a brand new shopping center going, being built just outside this neighborhood. But the bottom line is this neighborhood's not gonna change. Once I know this neighborhood, I can tell what's going on inside the neighborhood, not by coming back out here and walking around. I can tell what's going on inside this neighborhood by going onto the Multiple Listing Service and researching and seeing what the different trends are over time. If you're gonna be a real investor, you've got to understand this first fundamental rule. 80% of the value of all single family houses in America are determined by the neighborhood. Get to know the neighborhood and you have a very clear picture as to what that house is probably worth. When we buy our houses, we do something called a competitive market analysis, or run comps, C-O-M-P-S. Broker Price Opinion, CMA, and Comps are all the same thing. It's a different label for the same thing. And essentially what I'm doing is I'm saying, tell me what's going on in this neighborhood in terms of sales. I wanna look at the past six to nine months and I wanna see what was the sales activity. I'm looking for somewhere on the order of five to seven, five to seven comps or five to seven transactions. I'm gonna throw out the high and I might throw out the low and what's left is gonna be about five, what I call valid comps. I'm gonna buy based on the low number and I'm gonna run my analysis, determine my MAO, make my offer and either wholesale the house or fix it up. In other words, rehab it and resell it. And I'm gonna sell it on the high number, okay? But again, 80% of the value of any single family house is determined by the neighborhood. And I hope you got this point by coming out here with me today. Thanks.

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About the Author

Sherman Ragland, CCIM is a member of the FORBES Real Estate Council
https://tinyurl.com/shermanraglandFORBES
He is the founder and Dean of the Realinvestors®️Academy, the first real estate school for real estate investors approved by a state certifying agency. Realinvestors®️holds an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.

Sherman Ragland - RealInvestors®

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