I spoke with my handyman yesterday. He was supposed to be done on Tuesday, but I hadn't heard from him. Since I haven't paid him yet, that was a pretty good indication he wasn't done. Turns out he wasn't done. He said he was going to the house last night or today and all he has left is to put in some water shutoff valves and clean up the paint on the tile in the bathrooms (or put in new tile if he can't get it clean). He claims he will be done today and I will definitely hear from him today. He also asked if the new cabinets were being installed yesterday. I told him they were supposed to be in on Tuesday and asked if he had seen them. He quickly said he was there early Tuesday and probably left before the installers showed up. Yeah, right. He probably hasn't been there at all this week. I knew when I hired this guy that his track record showed he usually ran late with his work, but this is the worst I've seen. I think I'll try someone new for my next house.
I haven't heard from the cabinet installers, so I am hoping that means there were no problems and everything went smoothly. That's always a dangerous assumption...
Anyway, this means the house probably won't make it into the MLS this weekend, since I don't want to list it before I go there and check it out and that probably won't happen until tomorrow, at least. But some good news is that I ran comps on the property again and, using the same site as I did when I bought the house, the comps have gone from $145,000 to $152,000. Not too shabby! I think I'll list it for $160,000 and see if I have any takers.
Friday, April 22, 2005
House 11 Moving S-L-O-W-L-Y
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5 comments:
What site do you use for comps? I've been using homeradar.com or domania.com but the addresses around here are not normal (its a coordinate system - like 434 North 675 West) so its a little difficult at times.
This particular one was AppraiseAHome.com. I also use Yahoo (http://realestate.yahoo.com/re/homevalues/) and the MLS, as well as my county assessor's website. Domania doesn't work for my area. Hmm.. Interesting. Domania didn't used to work with my area, but now they do. In fact, they show a comp that's slightly smaller that sold for $159,900 last month. Maybe I can even go higher!
Interesting, Shaun. I tried AppraiseAHome.com just minutes ago, and it gave me the following for the property I'm closing on today:
SQFT VALUE $/SQFT
LOW 1,514 $110,228 72.81
HIGH 2,336 $198,635 85.03
AVERAGE 1,746 $159,378 91.29
This was with 16 properties. I figured about $133k was average for mine, but $159k!!!! :-)
That's one reason real estate can be a lucrative investment - it's an inefficient market!
http://realestate.yahoo.com/re/homevalues/ is a really good resource! I've used Domania.com for years, but their coverage is spotty at best in my area. One of my properties I've never really had comps for until I read Shaun's comments and found the Yahoo link. I am very pleased to know the value has risen, based on the average price per sq ft.
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