Love Letters. Real Estate

[California]

Cheap deal......must have sold quickly.
Elegant looking out buildings!
Low CA taxes too!

I looked online. Various realtors have slightly different estimates for the Stoetz Lane vineyard in that postcard above. Approximately:

Annual taxes $6,500.
(I pay less than a quarter of that. CA Prop 13 rules. I inherited Dad's 1973 assessment plus it increases 3% per year. Prop 13 was awful policy but I personally have benefited!)

Ok taxes don't look overwhelming. But lets see what the payments are:
Hypothetical financing on that place: $390,000 down payment.
Then easy payments of only $6,600 per month for 30 years.
Not including taxes and insurance.

An offer for 1% over listing price was accepted within less than a week.

CA real estate prices are insane.

 

[Pixguy]

I received a text today saying they wanted to buy my empty lot in Florida that we sold 7 months ago. Time to update your records guys.

 

[goeduck]

I looked online. Various realtors have slightly different estimates for the Stoetz Lane vineyard in that postcard above. Approximately:

Annual taxes $6,500.
(I pay less than a quarter of that. CA Prop 13 rules. I inherited Dad's 1973 assessment plus it increases 3% per year. Prop 13 was awful policy but I personally have benefited!)

Ok taxes don't look overwhelming. But lets see what the payments are:
Hypothetical financing on that place: $390,000 down payment.
Then easy payments of only $6,600 per month for 30 years.
Not including taxes and insurance.

An offer for 1% over listing price was accepted within less than a week.

CA real estate prices are insane.

Does Prop 13 tax basis pass through an estate?

 

[California]

Does Prop 13 tax basis pass through an estate?

Yes. It passes to a legal descendant so long as that is the next owner. I think now the descendant has to make it their primary home. I was surprised to learn there was no residence requirement to maintain it when I bought sis's half interest in the orchard out of dad's estate in 2001. Maybe non-residence was a concession to farm families to avoid breaking up the family farm? (Our home is over in the Central Valley, we spend about 40% of our time here in this old and simple farmhouse).

But I think now the descendant has to declare it as their primary home, for the continuation to pass through upon recording the new deed.

Kids today start at artificially high property tax rates to carry all the old farts riding on their backs. My newer neighbors pay around $6k, I pay less than a quarter of that.

Prop 13 is bad public policy and I voted against it back then. Today it's part of why kids refer to boomers as the entitled generation.

 

[fried1765]

I looked online. Various realtors have slightly different estimates for the Stoetz Lane vineyard in that postcard above. Approximately:

Annual taxes $6,500.
(I pay less than a quarter of that. CA Prop 13 rules. I inherited Dad's 1973 assessment plus it increases 3% per year. Prop 13 was awful policy but I personally have benefited!)

Ok taxes don't look overwhelming. But lets see what the payments are:
Hypothetical financing on that place: $390,000 down payment.
Then easy payments of only $6,600 per month for 30 years.
Not including taxes and insurance.

An offer for 1% over listing price was accepted within less than a week.

CA real estate prices are insane.

I very seriously doubt that the buyer ever considered payments of $6,600 per month.
Most probably..... cash on the barrel head!

 

[TheMan419]

It’s been probably 25 years ago we put an offer in on a house. Nice place, bigger than we wanted. Only problem was it needed a well. We went back and forth with the owner twice, he came down something like $250. We gave up quickly and a short time later bought the place we have lived in since.

A week or two later the first guy called me, your not suppose to do that, your suppose to go through the realtors. He didn’t think we were serious buyers and he had done some checking and found out we could afford it. He wanted to know if we were still interested? NO!

Now that I know about the love letter thing maybe if we had written him one we could have made the deal happen.

When we bought the farm we live on now our initial offer got rejected and a counter offer made. The original asking price and counter offer were quite high based on the market at the time. We elected to just walk away.... thinking our original offer was very fair.

Three days later we got a call from our realtor. The sellers wanted to accept our original offer as they found the house they wanted to buy. We negotiated to get them to pick up more of the closing costs than was normal.

 

[oosik]

I got a letter from a local real estate company yesterday. They had aerial photos of the house, outbuildings and entire property.

This letter indicated they had a buyer for the property and wanted to come out and get pictures inside my house.

THIS one I called back. Advised that I have NO intentions of selling anything, any time. Advised that they or any of their representatives are not welcome on my property. And if they are ever on my property - it will be considered as trespass, with aggressive consequences.

Some of these companies have a lot of nerve ..........

 

[ponytug]

I got a letter from a local real estate company yesterday. They had aerial photos of the house, outbuildings and entire property.

This letter indicated they had a buyer for the property and wanted to come out and get pictures inside my house.

THIS one I called back. Advised that I have NO intentions of selling anything, any time. Advised that they or any of their representatives are not welcome on my property. And if they are ever on my property - it will be considered as trespass, with aggressive consequences.

Some of these companies have a lot of nerve ..........

Sheesh is right.

How is there not an aspect of fraud in this?
Realtor to buyer; "I have just the place for you. You can by it for $X, look at these photos."
Buyer to realtor; "Great we will buy it for $X."
...Later realtor to buyer "Oh, actually that one isn't for sale."

Don't get me wrong, I think that you have an amazing place, and if it were for sale and I was looking I would buy it in a heartbeat.

All the best,

Peter

 

[fiddlearound]

We too get at least one letter or postcard a week offering maybe half the tax appraised value.
Yesterday, someone decided to come out and try a personal offer on some investment lots. I
asked for twice the appraised value, didn't have to ask them to leave!
This area of Central Texas is growing rapidly.

 

[Jstpssng]

Wait six months, the boom will have died to a whisper.

 

[check]

Wait six months, the boom will have died to a whisper.

Not gonna happen. This Covid stuff has created a whole new way of thinking, and there is no turning back.

 

[TractorGuy]

I have received post cards advertising"we buy houses". As long as it's sent legally through the mail I just treat it like any other junk mail.

I have neighbors that sometimes leave notes in people's mail boxes about road maintenance.

I don't like anybody going in my mailbox other than the carrier.

I let the neighbors slide but if I received a solicitation without postage I would probably report it. That IS a federal crime.

 

[grsthegreat]

Not gonna happen. This Covid stuff has created a whole new way of thinking, and there is no turning back.

Don’t bet on it. Prices are already starting to drop here.

 

[goeduck]

I got a letter from a local real estate company yesterday. They had aerial photos of the house, outbuildings and entire property.

This letter indicated they had a buyer for the property and wanted to come out and get pictures inside my house.

THIS one I called back. Advised that I have NO intentions of selling anything, any time. Advised that they or any of their representatives are not welcome on my property. And if they are ever on my property - it will be considered as trespass, with aggressive consequences.

Some of these companies have a lot of nerve ..........

I decided once to to play the game with one of those offers I would get in the mail. Once they thought I was serious they dropped the offer $200K. Never did a deal of course. Scammers.

Sounds a little different than yours.

 

[California]

Got another letter asking to lease my place to grow dope.

Maybe they are finding tax records where the billing address isn't the property so they expect an absentee owner. We're here 40% of the time.

We don't need the potential hassle at harvest time of armed midnight trespassers thank you.

 

[two_bit_score]

Don’t bet on it. Prices are already starting to drop here.

I’m constantly looking at realtor.com and in one area I look at frequently brokers have been suggesting I make my initial offer at $30,000 or so over asking price, offer to pay extra on closing costs, etc. I haven’t seen anything I would do that on yet.

Now I’m seeing “recently reduced” listings showing price drops of $10,000 to over $100,000. Some listings are showing up for at or below the CAD value. This is not all areas or the real hot areas like Austin but areas where they were legitimately getting offers above asking frequently for a while.

TBS

 

[scaredychicken]

we retrieved a "hand written" (yellow lined) flyer / offer letter in the malbox, last week. Looked unprofessional -though it was meant to be personal ... first name and phone number, yet generic to anyone. I ignored it.

he wanted to buy our house

I thought about calling and asking which house ? please give address and descripton of house ...

nonsense


also got numerous calls from an air duct cleaning service, called ... Air Duct Cleaning Service (yeah right)
no references
I have friends in that work
several dates rescheduled (by them)

nonsense, go away

 

[Sigarms]

Don’t bet on it. Prices are already starting to drop here.

The question becomes when the pricing drops, how much more is it still compared to the average sell price before all this craziness began?

Point being if an average house in your area would sell for 200k before all this crap hit and now it's listed at 375k, but now it's reduced 100k to a 275k sell price, did the price really drop over that years time?

 

[two_bit_score]

The question becomes when the pricing drops, how much more is it still compared to the average sell price before all this craziness began?

Point being if an average house in your area would sell for 200k before all this crap hit and now it's listed at 375k, but now it's reduced 100k to a 275k sell price, did the price really drop over that years time?

That depends. Was it actually on the market at $200k Before “all this crap hit”? Or was that just a WAG? Probably just a WAG or a CAD value. The term “average value” is also a wild card.

Now if the $200k was the actual last purchase price and the $275k was an actual purchase price that would be a $75K increase in market value over that time period based on specific sales data.

The terms “average” and “median“ values are helpful as general terms but too many people then try to pin that “value” on a specific property and RE is to unique to do that accurately in 90+% of cases.

 

[NorTracNY]

The market is certainly cooling off here. Yes, houses are often selling fast, but I'm also seeing "price reduced" signs going up.