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Commercial Real Estate Brokers Commercial Real Estate Listings & News Home Search Advertise News Customer Service CityfeetSpaces -- Thursday, December 29, 2005 Commercial Broker Directory For information about posting a Featured Ad, please email us or call us toll free at 1-866-527-0540. Cityfeet.com offers the most extensive free to search commercial broker directory in local markets across the United States. Find a broker in your area today. Free to search. No registration required. Detailed information including broker bio, photos and more... Contact brokers via phone or send an email inquiry. LOCATION -- Select a Region -- Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Puerto Rico Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Outside the U.S. SPECIALTY Lease Sale Office Medical Office Retail Industrial Lofts/Showrooms Flex/R&D Other Terms of Service Cityfeet.com is the leading website for finding commercial real estate brokers throughout the United States. Cityfeet.com can help you find the broker that is right for you. Search our free comprehensive database of for sale, for lease and tenant rep brokers by location as well as specialty. Please click here to promote your Brokerage Services. ©2004 Cityfeet.com - All Rights Reserved Home | Search | Advertise | Customer Service | About Us | Privacy Statement | Site Map Find Commercial Real Estate Listings - Cityfeet.com Company Overview : Cityfeet is the leading online commercial real estate network, connecting commercial real estate property owners and brokers to tenants, brokers and investors. Cityfeet offers commercial real estate products and services catering to the national and local needs of the commercial real estate industry . Cityfeet specializes in all commercial real estate property categories including office space, executive suites, commercial land, industrial property, retail space and businesses for sale. Cityfeet is the #1 source of free commercial real estate information for commercial real estate professionals and powers the commercial real estate area of many of the countries most popular websites including Yahoo! Realestate.com and The New York Times. ( See all partners ) Commercial Real Estate for Lease | Commercial Real Estate for Sale | Executive Suites | Businesses for Sale | Commercial Real Estate Broker Directory | Cityfeet Local

Sell House

Boston.com / Real estate Buying Renting Recent sales Place an ad Luxury Living Community data Financing Commercial Moving Guides How to solve appraisal problems By Inman news MORE Having an appraisal done on your home is essential, whether or not you plan on selling. Loan calculators NEWS LINK NEWS LINK RESOURCES For Sale: Homes | Condos | Open Houses For Rent: Apartments | Houses | Roommates Vacation rentals Place an ad: On Boston.com | In the Globe Commercial: Search listings for sale or rent An appraisal is a dispassionate, third-party estimate of the value of a piece of property. It can either give you peace of mind by affirming your offering price or it can put the kibosh on a transaction entirely. As part of your loan application, you will pay for your lender (typically $200 to $400) to order an appraisal to estimate the current market value of the home you want to buy. You may also opt to hire an appraiser yourself before you make an offer to help you determine the price you bid on a house. Lenders require appraisals before they will approve and fund a loan in order to ensure that the home is worth the amount of money you are asking for. While most appraisals match up with what buyers want to borrow, some do not, which can send a lender backing out of your loan commitment. Understanding how real estate appraisals and appraisers work can help you deal with the consequences. Why do appraisals go awry? Most appraisal problems boil down to two things: incomplete information on the property or incompetence of the appraiser. Incomplete information often comes with the appraisal territory. All appraisals must conform to guidelines set by the Federal Reserve, but ultimately every appraisal is a subjective analysis of a property's current market value. To arrive at that number on your house, an appraiser will compare your house with that of three comparable homes in the area that have sold within the past six months and adjust for differences in the properties. They will photograph, measure and inspect the home (do NOT consider this your home inspection, however) to help them make their comparisons. But true market value can be difficult to ascertain in markets where prices are volatile and properties widely vary. Incompetence in the field can cause appraisal problems, too. Not all real estate appraisers are created equal in terms of licensing and education. While federal licensing requirements for everyone are being phased in, only about half the states currently require appraisers to be licensed, though most states do require appraisers to pass a written examination and have 75 hours of continuing education and 2,000 hours of direct experience. Inexperience can be a big culprit in a problem appraisal, so can downright incompetence. Boosting the appraisal A lender probably will reject your loan application if the appraisal of the property comes back lower than the asking price. But you can fight a low-ball appraisal. Here's how: Get a copy of the appraisers report. You can successfully argue to raise the estimated value if you show that the report overlooks a valuable feature of the home or failed to consider the recent sale of comparable property for a higher price. Take your case to your loan representative. The lender can override the estimate or order a new report from a different appraiser. Try to renegotiate with the seller. The seller may be willing to accept less than you originally agreed to pay in order to avoid the time and cost required to cancel the sale and put the house back on the market. Increase your down payment. The lender may be willing to overlook a low appraisal if you put more money down. Find a good appraiser Ask your lender for the names of appraisers they know, trust and have on their list of approved appraisers. You also can check with one of several national appraisal organizations for names of local appraisers who are members in good standing. Look for an appraiser who can do your appraisal in a timely manner and who has experience in the area you want to buy. This can help speed things along, and assure you of an accurate appraisal. TIP: If you do choose an appraiser from your lender's list to check out a house, and you end up making an offer, you may not have to pay again for the required loan-application appraisal. Quick Take If you have any question about the value of the house you are bidding on, add an appraisal contingency to your purchase offer. This provision stipulates that the property must appraise for at least the purchase price you're offering. If the appraisal comes in lower, you can back out of the deal or renegotiate price. feedback | help | site map | advertising | globe archives | rss © 2006 The New York Times Company Real Estate Guide - Massachusetts Home Builder - New Home Construction

Investment Property Calculator Our

Investment Property Friday, 30.12.2005 Calculate Everyday Banking Ways to Bank E-Commerce Solutions Borrow International Trade Property Finance Plant, Equipment and Vehicle Finance Information Debtor Finance Apply For... Search this site Go | BNZ Home | Site Map | Terms & Conditions | Contact Us | Rates & Fees | Careers | Investment Property Calculator Our investment property finance calculator is a unique tool developed to help you as an investor test the affordability of property investments you might be considering. It can help you to find out what level of surplus or deficit your "financed" property investment may generate. To move between fields use your mouse, or the Tab button on your keyboard. For further help on using the calculator, just read our instructions . Enter the property's annual rental income: $ Enter the yield you wish to obtain: % Purchase Price: $ ~ result Enter either: loan amount as % of purchase price: Or amount of cash or equity you wish to contribute: 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 55% 60% 65% 70% 75% $ Loan Amount: $ ~ result Loan Repayments: Interest Only Principal & Interest Interest Rate: 6.00% 6.25% 6.50% 6.75% 7.00% 7.25% 7.50% 7.75% 8.00% 8.25% 8.50% 8.75% 9.00% 9.25% 9.50% 9.75% 10.00% 10.25% 10.50% 10.75% 11.00% 11.25% 11.50% 11.75% 12.00% Repayment based on year term Annual Repayment: $ ~ result Surplus: $ ~ result Surplus return on cash contribution: % ~ result How much will be owing on my loan after years? Amount Remaining: $ ~ result How to use the calculator: Rent is the source of income from any investment property that you may be considering. Key in the rental income that your proposed investment will generate. Yield is the rate of return you expect to achieve from any property investment you may wish to make. Key in the yield that you believe is an appropriate return on your investment. The combination of the rental income together with the yield you expect will determine the amount you will need to pay for the property to satisfy your return expectations. Enter the cash (equity) you would like to contribute to the investment; or Select the loan amount as a percentage of the purchase property you are considering, to test the tolerance of your investment compared to debt levels. Which loan repayment option would you prefer? Interest only or principal and interest? Select an option. Interest rate? Select an interest rate option , or call a property finance lending manager for a quote. Term? The term of your loan will also affect the level of debt servicing that your financed investment property can sustain. Select a term over which you wish to repay your debt. What the calculator will tell you: The price you are prepared to pay for the property you are considering, based on the rental income from the property and the return (yield) you expect on your investment. The total of the annual payments to service the debt on this proposition, based on the percentage you have considered borrowing against the purchase price, the repayment option you have selected and the term you have chosen. The cashflow surplus before any overheads, depreciation, miscellaneous costs and taxation. What it won't tell you: The quality of the rent. Before you make any investment, you must independently check that the tenant(s) in the property you are considering purchasing have a sound track record, and can be relied upon (in your opinion) to pay the rent. The quality of the property. Check with a registered valuer about the quality of the investment you are about to make. Ask a property finance lending manager for some guidance on how to choose a registered valuer to help you in making a prudent decision. The quality of your investment decision. Once again, we recommend you seek guidance from a registered valuer, a solicitor and an accountant in helping you make a sound decision. Ask a property finance lending manager for some guidance on how to choose your professional advisors. DISCLAIMER The calculator is provided for general information purposes only and does not form advice given by Bank of New Zealand. Bank of New Zealand accept no liability whatsoever for the consequences of any use of the calculator which shall not constitute an offer of finance. back to top © Bank of New Zealand 2001. Use of the information contained on this page is subject to our Terms and Conditions

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TREC - Home Page -- Licensee Info Search Quick Links -- To Popular Pages -- Licensee Info Search R. E. Contract Forms Renew or Apply Online Salesperson Application Real Estate License Forms Education Providers Core R.E. Course List Freq. Asked Questions Real Estate License Act TREC Rules Data File Downloads HOME Area TREC Home Page Licensee Info Search Meetings & Agenda What's New Archive What Does TREC Do? Freq. Asked Questions Email Notification List Related Web Site Links Topics of Special Interest Mission Statement Compact with Texans Customer Service Survey Link Your Site to TREC Site Map KEY To Symbols =Page is in area (folder tab) of this color = Adobe PDF file format = Web site external to TREC About This Web Site: Get Help Navigating the TREC Web Site Comment on the TREC Web Site here Web Site Wins 2005 Award The November 2005 issue of the TREC Advisor is available in both printable PDF and HTML formats. Licensees and other subscribers can access the TREC Advisor here . Commission Enacts Temporary License for Evacuees from Katrina Click here for details for prospective temporary licensees , including a special application form, the press release and the new rules pertaining to those affected by Hurricane Katrina. Our mission is to assist and protect consumers of real estate services, thereby fostering economic growth in Texas. What's New? The Texas Real Estate Commission proposed revisions to 6 contract forms and 4 addenda at it regular meeting on December 5, 2005. View the proposed forms and summaries here . A periodic Sunset Review of the Texas Real Estate Commission is currently underway, as required by the Texas Sunset Act. Broker Minimum Services Requirements . . . read the latest updates . 2005 Legislative Report - Two new bills to affect the Real Estate License Act; one new bill to affect the Texas Timeshare Act . . . read more Inspectors! We now publish the Minutes of recent Inspector Committee Meetings. Also, see the new, searchable Inspector Questions & Answers page. List of Providers for the new Legal Update and Legal Ethics courses. Please see our updated MCE FAQs page , covering the new Legal Update course and Legal Ethics course. Most Recent Enforcement Questions and Answers (past 6 months) -- Find former "new" items in the What's New Archive Important Information! TREC Redesigns Licenses The Real Estate License Act is now codified at Ch. 1101, Tex. Occ. Code File and Pay Online! Broker & Salesperson Applications; Broker & Salesperson Renewals; All Inspector & ERW Renewals All Licensees! Easily update your permanent mailing address online free. Look up MCE courses completed in the Quick Links' Licensee Info Search . Page last modified: 12/18/2005 Site Map Privacy & Security Policy Open Records Accessibility Texas Online Statewide Search TX Homeland Security

Real Estate Prices Still

Agricultural Economist Newsletter: Winter 2001--Farm Real Estate Prices Still Rising in Minnesota Farm Real Estate Prices Still Rising in Minnesota Steven J. Taff Average Minnesota farm real estate sales prices just keep on climbing (figure 1). This despite low output prices, rising input costs, and continued uncertainty about the future of federal subsidies. Sales price increases were seen in all parts of the state except in the northwest. In this annual sales price summary, I can provide only an overview, some cursory analysis, and--as always--a few opinions. I'll not bore you with text that simply repeats what's already shown in the charts. Instead I'll spend some time discussing how land transaction data are recorded, adjusted, and employed. I think it's useful to go through some administrative and procedural details to further our understanding of what these data are and what they are not. If this prospect makes you say, "Just show me the data, Steve," then you can stop right after the sales summary section. Or, if your impatience knows no bounds, go straight to the Minnesota Land Economics (MLE) Web site at http://apec.umn.edu/faculty/sjtaff/landdata/index.html and start working the numbers yourself. Farm Land Sales in 2000 Assessors are required to report initial assessments in late fall, based on sales data to date. That's why the data are reported on a "record year" basis: these are the sales that were, presumably, available for assessor scrutiny at the time the initial estimated market-values are calculated. Final values are set by summer, to be used in the succeeding tax year. So, for example, sales made in late 1999 are used by assessors to set initial values for January 2001. These estimates are adjusted in spring 2001, finalized in summer 2001, and then used for tax purposes in 2002. The adjusted record year 2000 sales data were therefore not available until April of this year. Figure 2 shows the distribution of all farmland sales in 2000. The bulk of the sales lie between $500 and $2,000 per acre. I excluded a small number of sales that exceeded $5,000 per acre as well as those involving parcels of land less than 20 acres in size. Both were excluded as not being plausibly "agricultural"--despite their designation on the Certificate of Real Estate Value (CRV) as "agricultural" land. (Although excluded from figure 2, these data are included in the MLE Web site data.) Even though MAE readers and MLE Web site users can view the full distribution of sales prices, most still ask for a single number that somehow captures the story behind the figures. Obviously, for a set of sales that span such a wide range in prices, any single number fails completely to accomplish this end. Movements in averages, while arithmetically correct, usually fail to tell the entire story. The particular average I use in this article is a location- and size-weighted mean (table 1). In last year's farm real estate report ( agecon.lib.umn.edu/mn/mae699.pdf ), I discussed the usefulness of such weighting as well as the desirability of examining sales data at the smallest geographic scale possible. Table 1. Minnesota farm real estate sales summary Record year Number of sales Acres sold Average price* 1996 2,504 263,728 936 1997 2,641 296,803 1,039 1998 2,724 303,968 1,113 1999 2,212 235,359 1,196 2000 2,258 250,979 1,222 * Location- and size-weighted per-acre mean Figure 1 compares the movements of actual sales price averages with those two other estimates of land value--the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) annual state estimates (based on a farmer opinion survey) and the average assessor estimates (the location- and size-weighted mean estimated market value). The University of Minnesota sales prices averages are location- and size-weighted means. The fact that all three (somewhat) independent estimates of farmland real estate values shown in figure 1 move in lockstep adds credence, I believe, to the conclusion that, on average, farmland values really are increasing in Minnesota. Geographic variations in real estate values for the past 11 years are shown in the box-and-whisker plots of figure 3. (District boundaries are shown in figure 4.) The range of sales prices for each district for each year is shown by the endpoints of the vertical lines. The ends of each box show the prices at which 25 percent of the sales were higher (or lower). The median is indicated by the horizontal bar within each box. So, for example, the median Central district farmland sale was about $1,200 per acre, with 25 percent of the sales lower than $750 and 75 percent lower than $1,850 per acre. In previous years' reports, I've noted the wide variation in average price movements among districts. Such differences were accentuated in 2000 by the continued climb of values in the South East district combined with the continued stagnation in the North West district (figure 5) . Farm Sale Data When a Minnesota property is sold, the transaction details must be recorded at the county courthouse on a form called a CRV. On it, the seller attests that such-and-such a property was sold to so-and-so on a certain date for a specific price. Other information about the property (its size, soil characteristics, prior year's estimated market value) is often entered on the CRV as well. Frequently, the per-acre prices that underlie this article and are also shown in the MLE Web site are not the prices entered on the CRV. Long before a land sales figure enters the official data base, it has been passed through an array of filters and adjustments designed to make comparison among transactions more meaningful and more reliable. Recording the Transactions There are many possible slips between an ownership change and data analysis. Of course, there is always the chance that simple recording errors are made. For example, numbers may be miscopied from bills of sale onto the CRV, or into a computer file, or into a spreadsheet. There is also a chance of misrepresentation. The person who fills in the CRV might have a reason to understate or overstate the actual sales price--perhaps to avoid a tax. This, of course, is illegal, but, as any courthouse veteran can tell you, it occasionally happens. Not every sale receives further processing. Local or state officials remove from subsequent analysis any sale not deemed "arms-length," because it was sold, for example, to a member of the seller's immediate family. Or, a sale might be pulled because the new buyer intends to convert the land to a non-agricultural use. Adjusting the Prices After this filtering, sales prices are frequently adjusted to make comparison among sales more appropriate. First, to expunge the effects of inflation, sales prices are deflated by an officially reported rate to January 2 of the year in which they were recorded. This "adjustment for time" is fairly minor in years (like the past decade) where inflation has been low. The second adjustment is "for terms." Not all farm real estate sales are for the full property. Some are made through a contract for deed, an arrangement that allows the buyer to pay a certain amount now and other amounts at stated intervals. Until the final payment is made, the property remains in the possession of the seller--even though it has been "sold." Because the full payment schedule is entered on the CRV, the Department of Revenue can calculate a present value of the initial and subsequent payments at an official discount rate. This becomes the official sales price of the property, regardless of what the buyer and seller had in mind when they sealed the deal. Adjustments don't end with a time- and terms-adjusted sales price, honestly reported and accurately recorded. In most cases, users of the data are interested in per-acre prices, not per-parcel prices. That means some chosen total price must be divided by some total acreage. But which price? Which acres? Should we use the total price or should we first subtract out the value of buildings, personal property, ancillary property, or machinery to get closer to the "true" land price? In this article (and on the MLE Web site), I choose to follow conventions established years ago in Minnesota. I report the time- and terms-adjusted total sales price, minus the value of personal property, divided by the entire acreage of the parcel. That's why, when I'm being careful, I speak of the average price of farm real estate, not of farm land . Employing the Data The sales reported here are only those recorded between October 1, 1999, and September 30, 2000. These "record year 2000" sales are so bundled because of the way real estate transactions are used to help local assessors value land for property tax purposes. Strange as it may seem, the Department of Revenue does not collect sales data merely to satisfy the data cravings of University economists like me. No, statewide sales data are collected principally to create statistics that are used to "equalize" property tax valuations across county boundaries. Each year, county assessors are required to assign an estimated market value (EMV) to each of the thousands of real estate parcels in the county. The estimate is supposed to be based on an examination of similar properties that were actually sold recently. (The combined valuations for each township, city, or county are the source of the Land Values--in contrast to the Farmland Sales--data on the MLE Web site.) Because every county has its own assessor who uses largely independent valuation procedures, there are inevitably discontinuities across county lines--even for adjacent properties. Farmer Brown wonders why Farmer Olson's land, just across the fence line in the next county, carries an assessed value that is lower by $200 per acre. The state has created an equalization procedure that is supposed to smooth over such discontinuities. Assuming that nearby properties really would sell for similar prices, any observed difference in assessed values for otherwise similar properties is presumed to be evidence that one or both of the assessors is either undervaluing (that is, assigning an EMV that is too low) or overvaluing properties. To test this, the state calculates a sales ratio (the EMV divided by sales price) for every property sold in a particular area. If an assessor systematically undervalues properties (shown by sales ratios that are consistently lower than some threshold), the state might demand the EMVs in that jurisdiction be uniformly raised, to better accord with what is thought to be "true" market conditions. How Accurate Are the EMVs? We can see for ourselves how close the final assessor estimates are by comparing actual sales prices against the previous year's estimated market values for the same property (figure 2). Each point in the figure represents one sale. For example, the rightmost point is for a property that was estimated to have a value of $4,900 per acre, but actually sold for only $2,900 per acre. While some of the estimates are obviously way off (like this example), the bulk are pretty close. In most cases, the EMV was lower than the sale price, but in a neatly predictable manner. A simple one-variable regression model, shown as the straight line in the figure, accounts for nearly 75 percent of the observed variation in farm real estate sales prices. Parting Thoughts What accounts for the ever-onward-and-upward movement of average farm real estate prices in Minnesota? We need only to round up the usual suspects, most of which I have discussed at length in previous issues of MAE . These include 1) perennial farmer optimism about future crop and livestock prices, 2) expected extensions of federal farm subsidy programs, 3) continued favorable local property tax treatment for farmland, 4) the desire of some farmers to increase the size of their current operation by buying adjacent farmland, 5) the desire of some non-farm buyers to use land as a hedge against inflation, and 6) inflation itself. An additional suspect that we need to add is the increasing prominence of location even in rural land markets. We simply can't explain current price levels on the basis of income potential (including subsidies) and speculation potential alone. Clearly, where the land sits with respect to job centers and what it looks like is influencing the price buyers are willing to pay for a particular parcel of land. As always, I caution potential land buyers and sellers about reading too much into the average land prices reported here and elsewhere. If you've got land to sell or if you have a hankering to buy land--look before you leap. The financial stakes are too high for casual empiricism. Hire an appraiser. Talk with your spouse. Check your finances. Think about the children. Be careful out there! Steven J. Taff is an associate professor and extension economist with the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. Return to Minnesota Ag Economist Newsletter Index Page University of Minnesota Extension Service HomePage