Super Snoopers
By Wayne Maruna

You drive home one afternoon and see a freshly planted “For Sale” sign growing out of the lawn of a neighbor’s house.  Other than the whys and wherefores, you’re immediately wondering “how much?” Or maybe you’re out for a Sunday drive when someone yells “Whoa, check this out” as you drive by a home of particular interest.

Not too long ago, the drill called for writing down the MLS listing number on the for-sale sign and contacting a realtor for details.  Then came the plastic boxes with the damp inkjet-printed sales flyers.  But now, as the saying goes, there’s an app for that.

Thanks to mobile electronics, there are instant ways to satisfy one’s curiosity.  Whether you are using an Android or Apple device, there are numerous free apps available to give you immediate info on properties, apps like Trulia or Zillow or Realtor.com. My current favorite is Realtor.com. So let’s say we’re on that Sunday drive and the car has been screeched to a halt by the curb. I can whip out my smart phone, bring up the app, click on a button marked ‘Nearby For Sale’ and the app displays a map of the immediate vicinity with plot points for all listed properties in its data base.  Usually I can drill down into any of these listings and be presented with a series of photos that provide a virtual tour of the inside and outside of the property.  Vacant lots are also listed.  Pertinent info such as asking price, square footage, a list of rooms and room sizes, and the info commonly found in an MLS listing are also shown.  On the Realtor.com app, for-sale properties are shown in green, but also shown in red are recently sold properties and their selling prices. The ‘Sold’ properties give a sense of what homes have sold for in the area, though the information’s value may be diminished by the fact that many homes, especially in Taberna, are custom designed and therefore not directly comparible.

Not to be outdone, most of the national brokerage franchises have their own apps. You can find them for Century 21, Coldwell Banker, Keller Williams, RE/MAX, and others.  Other specialized apps may focus on commercial properties, foreclosures, or rentals.

One fact holds true, at least for me.  The people who want money from me based on the supposed value of my house (tax assessor, homeowner insurance company) think my house is worth a whole lot more than area ‘comparables’ would suggest.  The last time our properties were reassessed, I was convinced the county had hired a firm out of San Francisco or Boston or some other high rent district to do the valuations.  It took considerable effort on my part to put together a package that ultimately convinced the tax assessor's office to lop off many tens of thousands of dollars from the original assessed value.  My best friend in this process?  The Craven County Geographic Information System website (GIS).  http://gis.cravencountync.gov/

GIS is a great tool for finding out what houses in your area have actually sold for, along with the optimistic tax values associated with the properties.  Go to the link above and click on the blue Maps button.  This takes you to a disclaimer page where you click on ‘Start Map’ at the bottom.  There may be a delay while the next page paints the area map.  On this page, you enter in the search criteria, be it owner name or street address.  Do not try to enter too much search criteria or you will only confuse the program.  I generally enter the house number along with the street name. Do not include ST or RD or DR in the street name block.  That info goes into the Suffix block.  Then click on the Search button.

The result should be a display of the property map, along with textual info divided into three tabs:  Property info, Sales info, and Buildings.  If the owner purchased the property as bare land and then had the home custom-built, only the land sale price will show on the ‘Sales Info’ page. But if the home was built as a spec home and originally titled in the builder’s name, or if it has changed hands since the original owner, the selling price of the house and land will be viewable. (This was quite helpful to me when I put together my ‘comps’ package for the tax assessor.)  Current and prior property owner names will also be listed. The ‘Property Info’ page gives details on lot size and deed book particulars along with the legal description. The ‘Building’ tab includes data on square footage (first floor only for some reason), the year built, number of rooms, and a whole lot more.

It may seem a little daunting to know that all this information is out there in the public domain and freely accessible to anyone with internet access, but when you consider how much of their private lives some people slap up on Facebook every day, perhaps it’s not so revelatory in comparison.