Lake Arrowhead & Crestline Communities

I just closed my house sale yesterday. I sold it for $520k 3 years ago, and then took it back. Resold it now in the low $300K range.

I no longer live in the market but here is what I have found. Smaller (under 1800 ft) will get MAYBE $90 to 110 per sq ft. Location, home condition, and features will set the price. If you added a $35K kitchen upgrade, it MIGHT get you another $5k

Jumbo homes above 3000 sq ft will fetch LESS per sq ft (always have up here) You might get 75 to 90 per foot. They will expect upgrades.

Both times I sold them I first tried using top notch agents. Listings ran from 6 to 9 months with no results.

Both time I sold them using a DETAILED (lots of photos) ad on craigslist. (FREE AD)

BOTH times I found my buyer within 2 weeks.

Good luck to you.

Bruce

The local appraiser remarks is absolutely true. You must use a local vendor that understands our area. Netseller, I can understand where you might be coming from, but $80-110 a square foot is quite low for Lake Arrowhead, which area are you referring to?

Adding in for Lake Arrowhead, homes are selling anywhere from $110 a square foot to $211 a square foot for a 2200 sq foot home. Obviously this depends on the home and quality and location.

Click on that link I gave earlier in this thread. The compile real estate data.

The data for September 2009:
Lake Arrowhead: 39 houses sold for an average of $180 per sq. ft.

Crestline: 27 houses sold for an average of $120 per sq. ft.

Every month Dataquik gives all of SoCal data on that site.

I was referring to Crestline. Historically Lake Arrowhead is very different in home vales. Upper end homes do far better there then in Crestline.

Sorry I was not clearer in my prior posting.

Bruce

Unfortunately now the banks contact appraissers directly and no one else has any input whatsoever on who to use.

A local appraiser is a must. Before moving here, we had a 3 bedroom 2 bath 1,600 square foot home with a 3 car garage in Chino Hills on a half acre lot. Our lot was 110 feet wide by 200 feet deep. There was a new 900 square foot barn with 3 stalls and a tack room that had room for 25 bails of hay, 300 pounds of grain, saddle racks, refrigerator, TV, a desk and a third bathroom. Our riding arena was 70 feet by 70 feet and we had RV parking for a 35 foot motor home that had its own power and dump. Sounds nice huh? The appraiser came from Hollywood with a souped up car and was clearly unimpressed with horse property and ranch style homes. My daughter noticed that he had written in bold letters at the bottom of a page NO SIDEWALKS!! The appraisal came in 50,000 under and his comps were from dissimilar properties as far away as Los Serranos which was considered the "Chino Ghetto".

That is exactly what has happening in the mountains.

The banks have their preferred appraisers and are likely to use one from DTH. No one else has any say whatsoever in that choice.

So where level entries, whether you are on a road that is plowed, more than two parking places, level access, views, and neighborhoods are normally factors in mountain homes, these are not being accounted for, or very minimally so.

What shocked me is that the condition of the property was not factored AT ALL in that last appraisal.

Some of the homes they used in our comps looked legally uninhabitable.

valu9ster...Thanks for the info. We're going to challenge the appraisal. I drove by the houses that the appraiser used for our comps and my mouth fell open. Old sideing, old roofs, old paint and on busy hwy 189. I'm so mad that I paid $400 for this!

We got a good refi in August. However, our appraisal seemed low and the appraiser was from San Diego!
They simply didn't understand the level entry, extra large parking deck (boat & motorhome), extra big two car garage, AC, etc.
It didn't really matter that much in the end because we weren't selling. Hope to do that in a couple of years when the market picks up.
If you do get a low appraisal, hurry to the County Appraiser's office and get your tax bill lowered.

Might I suggest Mary Anne Giroux. She appraised our house when we refinanced in January, did a great job and the appraisal came in at what we'd paid in March of the previous year (we were able to shave a half-percent off of our original rate). Our lender was VERY picky about the comps, kicked one back because it was more than a mile away, hard to believe any lender would take a comp from another town, but then they haven't been very good, have they? Don't have a number on Mary Anne, but she definitely "gets it"...

Mary Anne Giroux did an awesome job on my appraisal in GVL. Top notch appraiser for sure.

The law has changed and no bank will be selecting a specific appraiser. They are now required to go through an intermediary that will chose one at random to prevent self serving results.

As in the past, no appraisal requested by the homeowner will be accepted by a financial institution. Neutrality is necessary.

I agree with the concept of using an appraiser who is familiar with the area but those I have used who qualify were not "local".

Now I'm fighting with Wells Fargo. Is a finished basement that has electric, heat, a 6 X 8 ft window, a door that opens and is level to the front street concidered living space?

We always thought our house had three levels...not two levels with a basement. The back of our house butts up to a slope so the bace of the lower level in underground as well as 1/2 of one side. The rest of the house is on a foundation.

Does anyone know?

The answer may depend on permits. If it's permitted additional living space it should count. If it's not, they may ignore it.

Clarifying, that is if the original space was designated a basement or "build-up" rather than included square footage.

We finally got an appraisal that was within the range we expected. So if one company has a crappy appraiser, find another.