The RSF real estate struggle (232 active listings, 21 sold last month) is compounded by the newer communities surrounding the Ranch that have natural gas and sewer, and where you don’t have to grapple with maintaining 2+ acres. Additionally, having modern conveniences like grocery stores and internet makes a difference for home buyers!
Here’s an original-looking house from 1974 on three acres which look mostly unusable. But this is a decent deal for those who would rebuild – just tear the house down and build a new one 30 feet back from the slope and create an instant backyard!
Our regular commenter elbarcosr backed me up on how wacky the zestimates have been lately. They seem to be getting worse, which is hard to believe.
Being a Zillow homer now, I thought I better look into it.
Let’s serve up a nice big softball. Certainly the zestimates have to be accurate on recently-sold homes, don’t they? We saw how Redfin’s evaluator can cozy up close to a recent list or sales price, and you can’t blame them. After a few years, the database would look pretty consistent.
Does Zillow do the same? Wouldn’t it make sense to have your algorithm compute a recent sales price into the property’s zestimate? Because if you did, it would also help value the nearby homes that haven’t sold recently – because that’s how everyone would value them.
Evaluations in unique, non-tract areas is tougher. But if we are just looking at recently-sold properties, and their zestimates – the uniqueness shouldn’t matter as much!
I looked at 28 homes sold in La Jolla, Del Mar, and Rancho Santa Fe that closed between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000 in 4Q15, and compared their sales price (the definition of value) to their zestimates.
The average margin of error was 16%, and after removing the four that were wrong by more than $1,000,000, the average error was still 12%.
These are houses recently sold, and their sales price defines the actual value!
Even though the $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 range is the lower end for those areas and there are plenty of comps to help pin-point a zestimate, let’s consider an easier target.
Carmel Valley should be the hotbed of zestimate accuracy, especially when we look at the low-end where every data point is a pure tract house.
There were 57 CV sales in the fourth quarter between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 that were considered.
The average margin of error was 3.6%, which is probably acceptable. But if it was any higher, there would be concerns – these are tract houses that just sold in 4Q15, and have a long history of steady comps around them!
My takeaway?
The only zestimates that might be close are in pure tract neighborhoods.
Most national forecasts are predicting a 3% to 4% appreciation rate for 2016, which has to be a safe bet. If it comes in anywhere from -2% to +8%, you can say that you were close.
Zillow has enough algorithms that they are willing to make predictions for each local area. They have conflicting numbers, depending on where you look on their website – these are from the Home Values section:
You can see that Zillow was less optimistic last year too. Most were predicting that mortgage rates would be in the mid-4s by now, so the lower rates in 2015 helped fuel higher-than-expected prices. Could rates stay right where they are? Maybe, but both Zillow and I think the euphoria will die down next year:
Zillow Price-Appreciation Predictions
Town
2015 Prediction
2015 Actual
2016 Prediction
“Market Temperature”
Carlsbad
+2.7%
+4.8%
+1.9%
Cool
Carmel Valley
+0.3%
+5.4%
+1.4%
Cold
Del Mar
+5.5%
+1.1%
+1.4%
Very Cold
Encinitas
+0.6%
+8.3%
+2.4%
Warm
La Jolla
+2.7%
+6.6%
+2.3%
Very Cold
RSF
+0.4%
+11.1%
+3.7%
–
San Diego
+1.7%
+6.4%
+2.1%
Warm
Solana Beach
+2.7%
+6.4%
+2.2%
Cold
For some reason, Zillow is also labeling each market from Warm to Very Cold. The labels don’t seem to correspond to the predictions, so I don’t know their intent – are they just trying to tell you to put on a sweater?
How will buyers feel about getting worked over for that last 2% to 3% when they see they are in a ‘Very Cold’ market?
Billionaire philanthropist Ted Waitt, who in recent months has bought a house in Beverly Hills and listed another for sale in Hollywood Hills West, has put his estate in La Jolla on the market for $22.9 million.
Huge single level main house that’s undergone a $600,000 remodel, plus two guest houses for the extended family too. An incredible parklike setting perfect for kids to run around – and go to Roger Rowe Schools! This tennis estate has produced two high-level collegiate tennis stars! Only $2,645,000!
The OC Register is reporting that million-dollar sales in Orange County are down 12% this mid-summer. We’re watching the sales counts closely, because we know that is the leading indicator for the market.
How about our north county coastal region?
The OCR only looked at zip codes that had a $1,000,000 median sales price, which in our case, excludes all four zips in Carlsbad.
Here are the stats on the Encinitas-to-La Jolla sales over $1,000,000 (where 91% of the active listings today are over $1M) between July 13th and August 11th:
Year
# of Sales
Median SP
Avg $/sf
Avg SP
Avg DOM
2013
107
$1,560,000
$570/sf
$2,021,119
57
2014
111
$1,600,000
$593/sf
$1,849,571
62
2015
121
$1,500,000
$585/sf
$2,062,434
56
Our $1M sales count was up 9% YoY, instead of down – yippee! But nobody in this market should get giddy about pricing in general – it is flat, at best.
I have two RSF listings that are outside the Covenant.
One seller asked me what the chances are of selling.
I said 20%, to which he said, ‘Yikes’.
But any RSF listing only has a 30% or 40% chance of selling. There were 436 listings, and 127 sales (29%) last year in the 92067.
Here are the detached-home total listings and sold listings from 2014:
Area or City
Zip Code
2014 Listings
2014 Solds
Percentage
Cardiff
92007
130
80
62%
Carlsbad NW
92008
302
214
71%
Carlsbad SE
92009
789
525
67%
Carlsbad NE
92010
201
132
66%
Carlsbad SW
92011
336
209
62%
Del Mar
92014
306
193
63%
Encinitas
92024
646
405
63%
La Jolla
92037
637
321
50%
RSF
92067
436
127
29%
Solana Bch
92075
152
82
54%
Carmel Vly
92130
673
470
70%
All Above
Total
4,608
2,758
60%
Listings in the Ranch are the least likely to sell – by far.
What can a listing agent do to help the cause? State your case on value.
It’s always tough to estimate the value of unique or custom homes – but those in the Ranch have so many variables it will make your head spin because every property is so different.
As listing agent, it’s my job to justify the value.
If the purchase is financed, then an appraisal needs to be completed. Even though the sales price will have been given to the appraiser in advance, it’s still the listing agent’s job to make sure they hit the number.
As long as we gathered comps in the beginning to justify our recommended list price, and we have the need to deliver same to appraiser, we might as well include them in the listing to help buyer agents come to the right conclusion.
My case to support the $2,795,000 list price of 7060 Via Del Charro:
