Sellers Archives - Page 6 of 21

Interest Rates, Ideas for Buyers and Market Impacts

May 6, 2022 By Tayson Rockefeller Leave a Comment

It’s no secret, interest rates are definitely on the rise, and likely will continue to do so. It’s interesting hearing about all of the potential impacts. A lender friend of mine provided some good insight recently. Interest rates are still very low from a historical standpoint, and there are still some great ways to minimize the impacts of rising rates. These include mortgage points that come with a variety of options and the ability to have these points negotiated into a transaction or even paid by the seller. A mortgage point is effectively a way to buy down the interest rate up front. This can be a great tool to help buyers keep up with today’s real estate prices, which don’t seem to be going down despite interest rates creeping up. Buying mortgage points can also work well for buyers that intend to keep their loans long-term. Typically a “point” is equivalent to 1% of the purchase price and that will usually reduce the interest rate anywhere from 1/8 to 3/8 of a percent. Other options include a 2-1 (or even a 3-2-1) buy down which reduces the first year by 2 points in the second year by one point, which is where the highest amount of interest is paid on a loan while the principal of balance is still high.

Obviously interest increases are coming as a way to combat inflation, and it’s probably the lesser of two evils. Interestingly, supply chain issues, high building costs and other factors on the supply side are keeping new inventory at bay. Whereas real estate is primarily supply and demand based, this has created an interesting dynamic for both buyers and sellers. Personally, I do believe that the cumulative total of these issues will have an impact on the market, but without the increase of supply, I’m interested to see how much (if any, I should add).

Marketing Backfires in a Seller’s Market

January 26, 2022 By Tayson Rockefeller Leave a Comment

Notwithstanding some recent market volatility, looming interest rate hikes and other noteworthy news headlines, supply remains incredibly low and demand is as high as ever here in Teton Valley. While the market likely won’t always be in this predicament, I believe this advice will remain pertinent for many market cycles to come.

Getting back to the subject line here, we’ve grown accustomed to allowing the market to “autocorrect” when it comes to listing properties, at least listing them too low. If we know the last sale for something was $100,000, and it was more than a couple of months ago, we usually anticipate multiple offers at or above that number. With this consideration I arrive at my first no-no;

Listing too high

This can be a delicate balance, particularly when we know that the market increases month by month. We almost have to anticipate how much it has increased but not overshoot. Overshooting typically results in “days on market”, and the general conclusion by the public is that there is something wrong with the property. Days on market can be normal in normal markets, but detrimental in hot markets.

Anticipating multiple offers

I’ve seen this one happen a few times over the past 12 months. Just because the market is hot doesn’t mean that it can’t be eclipsed by random happenings. Real estate markets always come and go in waves and cycles. It’s strange how everybody looks at real estate at the same time, and oftentimes we find that people aren’t looking at the same time. Marketing a property stating that you are “accepting offers through Tuesday at noon” when you don’t actually have an offer might deter the only person looking at the house.

Overdoing itThis one’s hand in hand with the scenario above, but overdoing it can sometimes create a marketing issue. For example, scheduling an open house with a tagline of “multiple buyers expected, showings limited between 12 to 3:00” might also detour someone that isn’t interested in bidding against multiple buyers, even when there aren’t multiple buyers. Scheduling too many open houses is also a signal that the activity was less than expected, almost as if sellers are begging for buyers, we don’t want to give that impression.

2021 Land Year End Sales Report

December 19, 2021 By Tayson Rockefeller Leave a Comment

It’s that time of year again and it’s always fun to see the data. A friend suggested I prepare this in a graph style format. Naturally, I researched data from 2006 to date. For those of you reading the article as opposed to my blog or newsletter, you can probably already picture the trajectory of that graph from a high point in 2007, a low point in 2009, stagnation from 2010 to 2014, slow but increasing improvement to 2019, followed by a sharp increase in 2020. Here are my takeaways;

2008: There were 102 sales in 2008 compared to only 55 sales in 2009. Interestingly, things fell off later in the year, seeming to lag behind the rest of the Nation’s real estate trends.

2009-2012: The official recession had long been over by 2012, though land hadn’t seen much improvement in terms of the number of sales or the average sales prices during this time. These are the years with opportunities we likely won’t ever see again. I don’t attribute all of 2020’s massive gains to the usual pandemic related craze, I have always believed that land was too cheap for too long in the area.

2013-2018: This was the slow recovery stage I mentioned. It’s almost silly to think that any portion of the real estate market was still recovering this long after economic decline, but still, land prices were far cheaper than large tract land acquisition and development costs. As a result, inventory dwindled despite a huge oversupply that was attributed to the long-lasting “bargain” period.

Q1 2019 vs Q1 2020: In order to get a bit more quantifiable data I actually ran this report December 1st through March 1st (I didn’t want the pandemic in March of ’20 to impact this observation) and found that 2019 saw 37 sales with an average sales price of $188,896. One sale during that time at $3m had a big impact on that average, the median sales price was $72,000. 2020 saw 52 sales with an average of $73,064 and a median sales price of $59,000. I found it interesting that the number of sales for that quarter increased in 2020 but the median sales price decreased. For those of you looking at the graph and seeing the average sales price dip in 2020, this is likely due to the large aforementioned $3 million dollar sale that boosted that average just prior. With both land and residential the opportunity for a bargain post-pandemic before the real estate market took off was extremely short-lived. There were a few deals to be had during that time, but not many.

2021: Most real estate agents with a close ear to the ground will tell you that they feel the land market has peaked and things have stabilized as of the time of this writing, end of 2021. When looking at the data by quarter, the median sales price was Q1: $145,000, Q2: $150,000, Q3: $175,000 and Q4: $173,500. Obviously still some growth in there (until Q4), but nothing Earth shattering like we’ve been seeing.

Final Takeaway: A final interesting point should include sales prices in 2007 versus today. Interestingly, what they were nearly 15 years ago. In addition, we’ve seen 15 years of inflation and one of the hottest real estate markets in recent history. The bottom line? I believe real estate prices are currently where they should be. Bargain? No. Overvalued and otherwise a bad deal? In my view, no.

Measuring the Value of Land by Price per Acre

November 28, 2021 By Tayson Rockefeller Leave a Comment

I have been meaning to draft this article for quite some time, it is one of those articles that’s relevant in any market. That is, valuing a particular piece of property based on a cost analysis per acre. This is a measure that we will sometimes use when valuing large farm acreages. For us working in the industry, that’s usually where it stops. For others, that methodology trickles down into residential property which in my opinion, is usually not appropriate. I share this opinion with most when discussing values, but usually when customers, be it Buyers or Sellers, start forming their own opinion it’s hard to get them to change their perspective. For Buyers, it’s a way of arguing the value down, and for Sellers the opposite. I’ve heard this a few times…

Anyway. A local analogy I often use as an example is a development between Driggs and Victor. It’s really one large interconnected development with two phases, but it was organized as two separate adjoining developments that share the same rules and regulations. The East half/development comprises 2.5 acre lots and the West half comprises 1 acre lots, but there’s a catch – an important one. The current county density requirement in this area is one home (and guest home if the subdivision allows) per 2.5 acre parcel. The average density of the East development is obviously 2.5 acres. The West development also has an average density of 2.5 acres. Each 1 acre parcel is surrounded by community-owned open space that cannot be developed. Currently on market is a $190,000 1 acre parcel and a 2.5 acre parcel nearby priced at $109,000 per acre. Does that mean that the one acre parcel surrounded by open space is only worth $109,000? Obviously not.

Okay, so the above example is easy to justify. Let’s move across the valley into the Teton View corridor. To keep things fair, we need to keep the area similar. Properties East of State Highway 33 should be valued differently than those West of side of the highway. Let’s compare parcels in developments with no open space, one parcel being 2 acres and another being 5 acres. Am I saying each of these have the same value? No, but they certainly could. What I am saying is that if I were asked to value each of these parcels I wouldn’t even look at the cost per acre (yes, I would look at the overall size) of nearby listings or sales. The important thing to remember here again is that each parcel allows ONE primary home. I could compare 2.5 acre parcels with 5 acre parcels in the primary view corridor all day long and would probably find more 2.5 acre parcels that I would recommend to customers regardless of overall price or price per acre. I’m going to look at budget, proximity from the highway, property features, overall development value and restrictions and of course, the viability of an unobstructed view down the road. In other words, is it conceivable that I would value a 2.5 acre parcel and a 5 acre parcel the same? Absolutely. Does it mean I don’t take the size of a parcel into consideration? No, it does not.

The important thing to understand when determining or justifying the value of any given tract of vacant land is to remember to look at the entire picture. A 2.5 acre parcel overlooking 200 acres of an adjacent development’s open space has tremendous value. Trees, creeks, undulation in terrain, community features and amenities AND size – all of these elements should dictate the value of a parcel. It is not fair or reasonable to value any given property using just one of these metrics.

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