Recently Melissa was working an open house, and was talking with people who stopped by. One couple was going over the listing brochure and they were asking questions about it. Melissa was explaining what the various items on it meant. She explained that there were two numbers on it that they needed to look at as they looked at homes to buy.
The first was the listing price, and the second was the assessed value. She explained that the assessed value was set by the city last December. She told them that they had to ask themselves, and the sellers, why the listing price was so much higher than the assessed value.
She explained there often are real reasons why the listing price may be much higher than the assessed value, such as increasing market prices (not really the case here), or the seller may have made improvements that were not reflected in the assessment. Their response was, "oh my God, an honest real estate agent." It is a sad commentary on our industry that their expectation was that real estate agents were going to lie to them.
Melville Capps
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