Also, I have a property for you to consider …. “sale pending” …. no house yet, but features two newly planted sycamore trees on the corner of Willow and Camino Ricardo in Willow Glen area of SJ. Sound familiar?

Hit me with an email to see what can be said ….

MLS 763160: $10,500,000 – smaller columns so $4M cheaper (490 Kingsley Ave, Palo Alto)

Bala,
There got to be something wrong in your calculation. Is your calculator OK? Battery is fine? If your calculator is ok, then the calculation should have been: 225-199=199.

According to RealEstater, home price doubles every 10 years. Period.

If your calculator is ok and it still its shows 26K, then you can consider all these sales information are “USELESS DATA”.

1990: 199k
1998: 225k
2007: 670k

Between 1990 and 1998 the home appreciated by 26k. But between 1998 and 2007 the home appreciated by a mere 445k!

One year later isn’t it normal for the sellers (or the bank) to expect 799k? Spring bounce is on the way and this home is easily worth a million! Agree “9? or Disagree “9???

“The banks are the stupidest RE sellers there is.”

Indeed! I have been sniffing REOs for months and here is what I learned about how banks sell properties:

Each asset manager of banks has hundreds of REOs to sell. A lot of asset managers are in other states. They haven’t seen the property. They have no first hand knowledge of condition/location, etc. A bank owned property to them is no different than a stock. They rely on local listing agent to set the initial listing price to match or a bit lower than comparable house listed nearby. They won’t accept any low ball offer. They want to sell it at market price or a little below. Then every 30 days they will lower the price a little bit. But they must sell it when they need to write-off or they need the cash. So to get a good deal, you need to be patient.

Here is my experience of buying the bank owned condo in south San Jose’s 95123:

It was sold for $370K in 03/2006; foreclosed by Wells Fargo in 03/2007. Wells Fargo listed it for $350K in 03/2007, matching the listing price of similar condos in that neighborhood. Someone offered $330K, got rejected by Wells Fargo. Later, WF dropped the listing price to $330K, got a $320K offer but rejected it. Later, WF dropped the price to $320K, got a $300K offer but rejected it. Later, WF dropped the price to $300K, got a $270K offer but rejected it. I offered $200K in 11/2007. WF countered offer me $270K, but I didn’t accept. In 12/2007, right before WF announced $4B writeoff, WF accepted my $200K offer. How stupid they are!

Now they are in big trouble. Just be patient and buy at the last moment, just like J.P.Morgan bought Bear Sterns for $2/share for the book value of $80/share. Their pain would be your gain.