Recall the price-guessing contest posted to these pages on July 24th: Guess the Price Round 4: Time for a Rerun
Today’s “Guess the Price” guest star is likely to be familiar to many of you… because it was the star of our very first Guess the Price contest just a year and a half ago. That’s right, barely over a year after finally selling for $290,000, 3215 Kromer Ave in Everett is back on the market. According to an agent friend of mine (not a Redfin coworker), last year’s buyers are being “forced” to sell due to a job transfer.
This time around we’re starting with an asking price of $334,900.
We had 18 guesses in the contest before it closed, with prices ranging from $250,000 to $338,001. The average price guessed was $313,433, and the median guess was $316,500. Here’s the plot of all the guesses, with the final close price & date marked in green:
According to the NWMLS, the home sold yesterday (after a total of 216 days on market), with a closing price of $285,000—just $5,000 below the price guessed by commenter nize. Congratulations! I’ll be contacting nize privately to arrange receipt of his prize.
The final sale price came in 15% lower than the original asking price, and 1.7% lower than what this house sold for in May 2011.
Here’s the difference between the average guess and the final sale price our contests so far:
- -2.2%
- +5.5%
- -10.5%
- +10.0%
Stay tuned in the next few weeks, when we’ll kick off another round of Guess the Price.
+4-1
Hmm, older home in Everett, at least 1600sf, 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, sold for less than it did just under 2 years ago. Wait a minute, is this the house you challenged Corndogs to find yesterday?
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RE: whatsmyname @ 1 – This is a house we actually looked at when we were home-shopping, but passed up for the reasons listed as negatives on the contest post. In particular the terrifying ravine just feet from the edge of the home was a big turnoff for us, and probably a lot of other buyers as well.
And yet it still sold for $60,000 more than I paid for mine, so that doesn’t exactly prove that my home is worth less than what I paid for it. Not that I really care anyway since I don’t intend to sell anytime soon.
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RE: The Tim @ 2 – Agreed. I just couldn’t pass this up. It was too perfect.
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(comment moved over here from Thursday’s post)
I for one am going to sell into this bogus market “resilience” that we are seeing. It’s been a fed/bank induced illusion, just like the stock market. The lack of inventory helps anyone willing to sell right now. I could be way off, but I think this is a good time to sell.
Think it’s too late to find some good deals on Phoenix area investment condos for all cash?
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Wow. Those poor sellers lost their shorts – I feel for them. Bought at 290k. Sold at 285k. May 2011 to Feb 2013 – just shy of 22 months (we’ll round up to that).
Easily, they paid the following transaction costs:
6% “traditional” Re commission on 285k…..$17,100
1.78% Excise Tax on 285k….$5,073
Owners title policy….call it $800.
Escrow fee….call it another $800
Total: $23,773 (and that doesn’t count moving expenses, little fix up’s they may have done, all the crud one buys when getting a home like hoses, garden tools, etc if they’re first time buyers, etc). Take that right out of the check they’ll see at closing.
Divided out over 22 months: $1,080 a month.
Assuming they put 20% down (58k) and borrowed the remaining 232k @ 3.125%, they paid another $600 or so a month in interest. Let’s factor that down though for the income tax benefit by 25% to $450 a month.
So, over all they paid over $1,500 a month in interest and transaction costs. Ouch….ouch. That just plain hurts.
Granted that, as The Tim noted, they were forced to sell due to job reasons, but it illustrates what the costs are if one is a short term buyer. Please people, DON’T BUY if you’re not in it to get to a paid off, fully owned situation, or have at least a 10 – 15 year time horizion. If you’re not in it for the long run, you’ll get your back side handed to you in this sideways price environment.
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