11420 42nd Place N

11420 42nd Place N

Comments: Part of my project to track all sales in Forster  Preserve. Currently 4 houses for sale. Property Tax Id: 14-118-22-11-0010

4265 Deerwood LN - $437,500

4265 Deerwood

Excerpt:

Description for 4265 Deerwood Lane N Plymouth, MN 55441 Must-see rambler, lots of updates. New carpeting, new paint, refinished wood floors. Extensive use of vaults. Large gourmet kitchen w/ SS appliances, Silestone, reverse osmosis H20. XXL heated garage. Must-see lower level. Close to French Park.

Comment: Tracking all "for sales" in our neighborhood. Currently 3 homes for sale (and possibly one in foreclosure). This house is one street away. Slightly smaller than our's (we have a 4th bathroom and a full sized den). Hennepin County estimated market value (for taxation) is $383,500. Last sold in January 2002 for $375,390. (Property ID: 14-118-22-13-0088). Our house would probably be worth about 4.5% more (my estimate based on public data)

11315 42nd Place N

11315 42nd Place N

Comment: Up the street and around the corner in my neighborhood. I'm hearing that home prices have recovered to 2008 levels and this is evidence of that.

4283 Evergreen Lane N

Edina Reality: 4283 Evergreen Lane N

Comments: The only house in our neighborhood for sale. Very nice curb appeal and nice interior appointments

4260 Evergreen

4260 Evergreen

Comment: Nice landscaping.

4295 Cottonwood Lane

4295 Cottonwood Lane

Comment: This house was briefly on the market August 2012. The Edina Realty site did not have a picture up today. The image above is from Zillow.

4260 Deerwood LN

4260 Deerwood LN
Comment: 1 street over from ours. Larger than our house + 5th bedroom. Just went on the market this week

11300 42nd Place N

11300 42nd Place N

Comment: The latest to go up for sale in our neighborhood. We first saw the for-sale sign on Tuesday 5/7/13

Join Next Door Forster Preserve (Plymouth, MN)

NextDoor Forster Preserve

Comment: Today we sent out 69 letters of invitations - one to each home. Nathan hand addressed every envelope for us. I need to have 9 neighbors sign up in the next 15 days to make a go of this. (NextDoor validates addresses so this invite is only good for houses in Forster Preserve (Plymouth, MN))

4280 Cottonwood

4280 Cottonwood

Comment: Up the street from me. Very nice house. Not sure how they valued this at $ 520K. Still waiting to find out how much the house next to me sold.

4280 Cottonwood Ln N, Plymouth, MN

4280 Cottonwood Ln N, Plymouth, MN 55441

Comment: Obviously I watch neighborhood home sales because of the probable sale of my own home in the not too distant future. This house is much larger (by 20%) than ours. I know the owner - nice guy. I will miss them.

Forster Preserve - Plymouth MN

Comments:

• Housing was built on the farm of the old Forster's Meats. See image below. (long since demolished)
• Map location
• There are 68 houses in this development
• The first houses were built in 1994
• And the last houses were completed in 2003
• Our house was built in 1994 and we moved in June 1996

4284 Deerwood Ln N, Plymouth, MN 55441

4284 Deerwood Ln N, Plymouth, MN 55441

Comment: First noticed on the market today (2/6/2013). We drove though that loop this past weekend and there was no for-sale sign up. This house is massive ... almost 4,000 square feet. I'm using the label "Homes for Sale my Neighborhood" to track.

House Next Door

4250 Cottonwood Lane N

Comment: Our neighbor Shirley has moved in with her daughter and now her home is on the market. We knew it was going on the market and guessed the value at about $ 350,000. It's on the market for nearly $ 75,000 more. Will be interesting to see what it sells for. Hennepin County has it on the tax rolls for $ 338,000.

Below is pick of back of the of house .... red box is corner of back of mine.

Comment: See Guessing the value of one's home. This house was one the market for 1 or 2 weeks and then withdrawn

Guessing the value of one's home

Today Kathee and I were having the "next house" conversation. We've been in our house for 16 years. When we moved in we had three kids at home: 15, 13, and 10. Now we are empty nesters. We have 4 bedrooms, a den, 4 bathrooms, etc. 3,300 square feet. Too much space!

I believe we are approximately 3½ years from selling.

Our next house will almost surely be a condominium with between 1500 and 2000 square feet of living space.

Our house is in pretty good shape but there are things it will need before we sell. The carpet in ¾ of the house is 16 years old and will need to be replaced. The entire interior will need to be repainted before we sell. The exterior is in exceptional shape thanks to a hail storm 3 years ago. Siding has been replaced on half of the house. Almost every window was damaged then and was replaced. Our roof is a 40 year shingle and it was replaced 3 years ago. Our furnace and hot water heater are almost new and high efficiency. Our air conditioner is 12 years old. It may need to be replaced before we sell. Our driveway was repaved last year.

For the past two years, few houses in our neighborhood have been on the market. So it is difficult to gage the value of one's own home. This week a house up the street from ours went on the market.

We played a little guesstimate game in the car as to what it was listed for. Kathee guessed $ 325K and I  guessed $ 350K. We were not even close!

So without having a realtor connection how might one evaluate the value of one's own home.

Here's what I did:

First I checked the local MLS:

We've been in this house. I think Kathee viewed it when it was last on the market. Our house is at least this house. We have an extra room (a den that could be a bedroom). 

Second I checked Zillow: 

The Zillow estimate is $ 23.5K less than ours. 

Finally I checked the county property records: 

Hennepin County values the above property at $ 21,000 less than ours.

Now just because it is listed at $ xxx,xxxx doesn't mean it will sell for that amount. My own guesstimate on the value of my own home is $ 25,000 less than what this house is listed. So I will need to revisit the MLS site to see if their price is reduced and then after the sale revisit the county website to see the actual sale price.