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ELLIOTT® & COMPANY APPRAISERS
CELEBRATES 30th ANNIVERSARY
 On
October 1, ELLIOTT® & Company Appraisers celebrated its 30th
anniversary. During its 30 years in business, ELLIOTT® has grown,
through a combination of technological innovation and personal
service, into one of the best known and most reliable national
appraisal management companies. ELLIOTT® offers appraisals,
evaluations, research, consultation and representation in all
counties of all 50 states, as well as such services in most foreign
countries. The company has a network of hundreds of clients.
“We have access to, and employ the best appraisal technology
available, but we really take pride in our personal service,” said
Charlie Elliott, MAI, SRA, ASA, and president of ELLIOTT® & Company
Appraisers. “I believe that our service sets us apart from other
appraisal management companies. Our people are more than just
order-takers; they’re problem solvers.”
SOME HIGH-END HOME SELLERS CUT
PRICES; SOME DON’T
 Since
the housing meltdown a couple of years ago, some of the high-end
homes on the market have seen dramatic slashing of listing prices.
Early this month, the Greenwich, Connecticut, home of the late Leona
and Harry Helmsley sold. It hit the market in 2008 with a price tag
of $125 million. Eventually the list price on the former home of
this famous and infamous hotel-operating couple was lowered to $55
million. The buyer, a Greenwich attorney, paid $35 million for the
house.
A recent article in The Wall Street Journal reported that the
Manhattan duplex owned by the late Brooke Astor, which was
originally put on the market for $46 million, had been dropped in
price by almost 50% to $24.9 million, while Peter Sperling, whose
father founded the University of Phoenix, lowered the price of his
mansion in San Francisco from $65 million to $47 million.
Other owners of expensive real estate are sticking
with their original price tags. Suzanne Saperstein, who had
been previously married to David Saperstein, founder of Metro Networks, has
kept the asking price of her Beverly Hills mansion at $125 million.
Jim Kirk, founder of NationsRent, is sticking to his listing price
of $600 million for another California estate, a ranch, in
Carmel Valley. Furthermore, Joel Horowitz, co-founder of Tommy Hilfinger,
has been asking $100 million for his 210-acre spread in Zephyr Cove,
Nevada, for over four years.
GSES WORKING WITH GLUT OF
REPOSSESSED HOMES
There are a lot of organizations that would like to
be ranked among the largest sellers of homes. Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac would rather not be on such an exclusive list, but they are,
nonetheless. The incredible amount of foreclosures they have had to
deal with left them holding over 191,000 homes, which they have
repossessed, at the end of the first half of the year.
Due to all the maintenance and repair costs, as well as property
taxes, utility bills and other expenses, owning so many homes is
quite an expensive proposition. Making the situation even more
complicated, the executives of these government sponsored entities (GSEs)
realize that putting all of these foreclosed homes on the market at
once would further deflate home values, leading to even more
foreclosures and less value for the homes they are trying to sell.
In an attempt to stabilize neighborhoods, both GSEs have started
programs that only accept offers from owners who will occupy the
homes or from community groups during the first 15 days they have a
home listed on the market. Also, Fannie has started a program in
Chicago in which it rents foreclosed homes it owns rather than
attempts to sell them. This is a test program because the GSE has
little property management experience.
PROHIBITION OF BPOS ON MORTGAGE
TRANSACTIONS PROPOSED
The North Carolina Appraisal Board sent a letter to
Tim Geithner, the Secretary of Treasury, and to Barney Frank,
chairman of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, asking them
to push legislation that would ban the use of broker price opinions
(BPOs) for all mortgage transactions. In the letter, dated September
28, the board noted that the FHA and Department of Veterans Affairs,
as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, already require a
professional appraisal to be used as collateral evaluation.
The board in the Tar Heel State also pointed out that real estate
agents, who perform the BPOs, tend to have a financial interest in
the subject property.
“By the very nature of what [real estate agents] do, they are
advocates of their client’s interest,” the letter read. “They are
not unbiased or uninterested third parties, nor should they be.”
DISTRESSED INVENTORY COULD
SUBSIDE BY 2013
Nearly one of four homes sold in the second quarter
of this year had been in foreclosure, RealtyTrac announced late last
month. That is a lower figure than that of the first quarter, when
almost one in three homes sold had been foreclosed.
By the end of the third quarter, banks had foreclosed on more than
1.2 million homes, up about 20% from a year ago. Five years ago that
figure had been 100,000. Nevada led all states with 56% of homes
sold being foreclosed upon in the second quarter. Ohio had the
largest percentage discounts on foreclosed homes at 43%.
The percentage of properties sold in the second quarter that were in
a foreclosure stage was 20% below what it was a year ago. Banks sold
28% less REOs in the second quarter than they did in the second
quarter last year. REO sales in the second quarter were about 15% of
the total of homes sales, while that figure was near 20% in the
second quarter last year.
“This is the kind of volume of activity that we need to see for the
market to heal,” said RealtyTrac Senior Vice President Rick Shargo.
“Our projections have been that we will get through the distressed
inventory largely by the end of 2013, and these kinds of numbers are
on target to get us there.”
 ASK MARTITIA
QUESTION: If an appraiser follows his client’s request and
develops an opinion of the market rental rate of an office building
the client owns, is that considered to be an appraisal?
MARTITIA: Yes. The Uniform
Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice’s definition of an
appraisal is an “opinion of value.” Market rent is an expression of
value for the proper use of the property.
Martitia Mortimer, Elliott’s executive vice president, answers
appraisal questions on a regular basis in Elliott Real Estate
News.
QUOTES
“I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets.
It seems to me that they are wonderful things for other people to go
on.” – Jean Kerr
“The most successful politician is he who says what everybody is
thinking most often and in the loudest voice.” – Theodore
Roosevelt
“The minute you start talking about what you’re going to do if you
lose, you have lost.”
– George Schultz
“Private property was the main source of freedom. It still is its
main ballpark.” – Walter Lippmann
“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they’re
supposed to help you discover who you are.”
– Bernice Johnson Reagon
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| Newsletter Editor:
kevin@elliottco.com
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3316-A
Battleground Avenue
Greensboro, NC 27410 |
Toll
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Fax 336-854-7734 |
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