A Great Tool for Appraisers
One of my favorite tools, as an Appraiser, is called Altos Research.
Altos Research is an aggregator of MLS data. They have agreements with MLS systems all over the county, that allows them to take the MLS data and make charts with them. They then sell those charts back to Realtors for use on their websites.
Best news, other than it’s accuracy, is that it is free.
I use it in nearly every appraisal I do.
Simply go to www.altosresearch.com and input the city you are working in. Tip: use your up and down arrows on your keyboard.
Click the button and within a few seconds, you will have a chart of property value trends.
Keep in mind that the charts are by city, so it is going to give you a more macro perspective, but as a general rule, so goes the values in a city, so does the values in a neighborhood.
There will be times that a specific neighborhood in a city with have different value trends than the city itself, but again, this is just a tool and one piece of the puzzle in your Neighborhood Market Conditions analysis.
I always put the chart right before my 1004MC. I use a 4 x 6 blank photo addendum and label the photo where I put the chart, “City Price Trends”.
There are other good tricks to demonstrate Neighborhood Market Conditions, but I’ll save those for another time.
As always, we may not be the biggest AMC. We just want to be the one you like working with, the most.