Property values in Davis Sq (and Somerville)

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

I just saw in the Somerville News an estimate saying that property values in Somerville declined 2% this year:
http://www.thesomervillenews.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=2&ArticleID=218. Somebody mentioned that Zillow actually reports a loss of about 8%. This is confusing. The Editor of the Somerville News pointed out that Zillow does not have accurate estimates. In my experience, Zillow is pretty on the mark when it comes to sale prices, they seem to be doing lots of good stats on their datasets. Any idea on how to gather additional information on this? I doubt one can trust the Somerville News, given that it was created by the owners of ERA, one of the Somerville Real Estate agencies (clearly, they would not want to advertise that property values are going down around here).

One funny tidbit. Have you received a pack of coupon last week? I received one, and one of the coupons was an ad for ERA, the Norton Group. It says: "Voted #1 Real Estate Company 2000 to 2007 By the readers of the Somerville News"! Now, when many of the readers are ERA employees or relatives of ERA employees, that is a bit of a conflict of interest, isn't it? :)

Comments

[cold-type.livejournal.com]

Two things re: assessment values.

1) The new assessment is based on values as of Jan. 1, 2008, compared to Jan. 1, 2007. So the 2 percent change supposedly represents the change in property values during 2007 -- not this year. (The assessments are always a year behind.)

2) Are assessments more reliable than zillow? I don't really know. But when I look at home sales, I've noticed the numbers often differ substantially from assessments. Has anyone else noticed that? If you bought or sold a home in the past few years, was the assessment on the mark?

[jamesnorton.livejournal.com]

actually, no, if what i typed read that i was trying to imply that assessments were reliable with respect to the market, then that isn't correct. when determining taxes, assessments are the benchmark - that's all. assessments with respect to real world valuation (the market) are notoriously flawed for a number of reasons which would take hours to explain.

when it comes to the marketplace in the boston (all of new england actually) zillow is notoriously flawed...it's hard to pinpoint why, esp given the fact that it is true, zillow has been very much on target in a city like san francisco.

i took offense to the person making the snide comments - nothing that could have been considered a "disagreement" as far as opinions or statements of fact...

Zillow again.

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

So, do you find that Zillow usually underestimates the value of Somerville properties?

Re: Zillow again.

[somertricky.livejournal.com]

You want underestimation? Take a look at the values realtor.com coughs up.

zillow manillow

[jamesnorton.livejournal.com]

actally tricky - good example of biased data there...

i'm a realtor, and that entire site is an embarrassing shill-fest

yuck

Re: zillow manillow

[somertricky.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what makes the low values on that website biased, but they've got Phillys on the Davis/Powderhouse side of the Brown School valued in the mid-fives, which is insane.

Zillow has what I'm guessing is more accurate numbers in these cases, which is mid-six tending towards seven. That alone is close to 20% between the two sites.

[narya.livejournal.com]

If you (say) renovate an old 2-family that's in disrepair into two shiny new condos, the assessment would presumably not catch up until the next year. So in cases like that I would expect the assessment to be pretty different from the sale price at the time of sale.

Absolutely.

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

My place was assessed 2 years ago or so, when the city was reassessing everything in order to jack up property taxes. I doubt they'll be in a hurry now to reassess...