It's a tough question but as a couple of posters noted, if there is personal property portioned out, what is it for? If it's not "really" personal property, then these folks can't have it both ways...they either are claiming it is, or not. Yes, it brings the purchase down which lowers tax rates a bit, but the math makes little sense. Why would a buyer take 75k out of a price , pay 75k cash at closing for non existent "personal property"? The tax savings on such a small amount doesn't make it worth it. They might save 1k a year on taxes at that amount, which means they'd have to live in house 75 years to see the savings.
Are RE agents truthful when they state there was no "real" personal property when asked? Maybe some of the time, but they have client confidentiality and frankly, if I were a RE agent (which I used to be), I would not reveal confidential info to some appraiser calling me about a house I sold.
My experience , for what it's worth, is that the country club communities it's usually a $ equity fee mandatory payment to club. Equity fees run 50-100k The buyer is supposed to pay that anyway, so roll it into a purchase price only to take it out? It does make houses look they are selling for more than they did.
I see that a number of these golf and CC communities have marketability problems. A few of them are golden, the rest have trouble attracting buyers who are willing to pay 50k -100k mandatory join the CC club or golf/ and then 15k -25k a year mandatory dues. Some of these houses are on the market 2 and 3 years with multiple price reductions.
As to buyers suddenly becoming generous and for no particular reason offering to pay RE commission that seller normally pays...why would they do this? It makes no sense for a buyer to offer to pay a full 6% commission out of pocket for seller if seller reduces house price by 6%. There is zero savings in that for buyer. However, if they all negotiate and buyers says to RE agent, you've had this house on market 3 years, nobody is buying these, I'll buy it and pay commission but reduce your commission to 4%, or 3%. That makes sense and especially at the upper price ranges, over 2 million, a full 6% commission is substantial, it's hard to see people astute with money paying that much.
If we can see a HUD with amounts from closing....may be believable, still the personal property is an issue.
Personal property, could mean no PP with the goal to pay less in property tax. But that still seems a weak reason for the machinations. I did a house on PB Island 2 years ago, 120k personal property in Contract, all very vague about what it was for, drapes and fixture supposedly. Only because I was lucky and able to trace some information from a recent prior purchase on this property did I find out the personal property represented plans and specs and permits to demolish house and rebuild ( this was expensive but dated house on wf). These people are sophisticated, wealthy, own numerous homes, and are not going to tell all their business to an appraiser and they don't want their agents telling either.
Many of these deals with 2 prices are bought all cash.
When people finance, they tend to play games with the mortgage and financing, if they can. Raise prices for concessions and seller paid, borrow to the max etc. In the multi million $ market, many of the comps sold for all cash. What games could be played when a buyer is paying all cash? At that point, it's cash conservation, so if buyer can lower the price, lower the commission by paying it out of pocket, get valuable consideration for supposed non personal property , save taxes etc, it works. Later they might refinance or take an equity loan, or want to sell at some point so the higher prices on MLS they hope will help them down the road.
It's tough for an appraiser no matter what. To use the higher MLS prices one is dealing with unknowns and relying on RE agent statements, to use the lower recorded prices, is more reliable as it what is known to be paid at closing for title, but might, in fairness, not represent the full consideration paid. Maybe on way to approach is to include regular sales term comps that sold without the games , or comps or where you saw the HUD and know the personal property, and disclose that some of the lower prices of comps have higher MLS amounts paid. Put the higher price at bottom of grid and adjust known amounts out perhaps. Who knows...happy to not appraise one of these at this point.
