DOM for an estate

[Jeff Horton]

I have one of those jobs. It's an estate Appraisal that I am doing. It's has some issues. It's an impressive looking Colonial on a hill. As you drive up first impressions are really good. House towered above the drive and has a beautiful entry. Front half of the house is original and impressive too.

However in the rear of the house they have added on and it's not impressive. They dug out a hill for the addition and there was just enough room to walk behind the house. But not all the way around. Had to measure what I could and the let the rest just fall in place when I made my sketch. it's so tight the Condensers for the AC are up on the hill behind the house!

I have done a RELO on house on the same street a few years ago that had similar issues. So I have some data to pull from on it's sale. It has sold twice. Once it took 400+ days and the last time it took over 500 days. Sales price amazes me but obviously there are buyers if you wait long enough

My appraisal is of the date of death of the owner. Obviously Market Times are going to have a big impact on the value of this home. Reasonable market times are going to require a discounted price. Longer market time I can see a higher value (well sales price actually).

I am doing a narrative so I can explain my logic clearly. But what I am unsure of it what I should use as market time. They need this for estate purposes and they also want to sell the house. So they want to use this to establish an asking price too. My Market Definition I am using doesn't address market time. On this job I MUST spell out the market time but I am uncertain what I should use. I am leaning toward a 3-6 month since our average is 3-4 months.

Just looking for some input so I can decide how to handle this one.

 

[Don Clark]

Jeff,

Sounds like a twofer. That is, you are being asked to opine 2 opinions. One for estate purposes, the other for listing or marketing purposes. It appears to me that you have already worked out the marketing time for listing and sale purposes based on your local data. I would believe that would be sufficient from what you have described.

 

[Jeff Horton]

Your right Don. They asked me about marketing the house. That is what they wanted to know. I suggested that he make the Effective Date the date of Death since he had not had an appraisal done and would probably need one. In our Market there would not be any difference in the two values. He can establish an asking price based on the Appraised value for the Estate at time of death.

Thinking on this a bit unless someone can point out a reason not to, I am going to base this on the average DOM time. I will add something explaining that a longer market time might find them that one buyer willing to pay more.