In my opinion, non-disclosure does little to benefit the average homeowner, and instead is a boon to commercial and luxury home owners. Personally, I think that property taxes in Texas are too hight to begin with, but because we are a non-disclosure state, appraisal districts have to "guess" the value of homes. That's a lot easier to do when you are looking at middle class neighborhoods where the homes are largely the same. But it is a lot more difficult to do the same in high-end, luxury communities. As a consequence, higher end homes and commercial properties may not be taxed at their true values, and guess who picks up the slack for that? Middle class homeowners, that's who. So even though some say that they value the privacy of keeping the purchase price of their home undisclosed, until we do away with property taxes and unless they are in the "upper brackets" themselves, those same people are potentially paying higher taxes than they would be if we were a full disclosure state.

Mon May 12 2008, 12:36

This also relates to other posts about the differences in the real estate business and laws from region to region. In Charleston, the county maintains a very user friendly website to click on maps to find the owners and what was paid. Whats more, on Saturday the newspaper publishes every real estate transaction over $250,000, including the names of the sellers and buyers, address, and the price. Here is a sample (public information fromhttp:// www.charleston.net):
Charleston County

The transactions listed below include properties sold for $250,000 or more and recorded Sept. 17-21.

Charleston

Twenty-One George Street LLC sold Unit 13-A, 21 George St. to John W. and Barbara R. Falkenbury for $645,000.

150 Bee Street LLC sold Unit 407, 150 Bee St., Bee Street Lofts to Garry A. and Judi J. Hayden Rank for $467,329.

Samuel E. Hanvey sold 54 Gibbes St. to Alfred Conhagen Jr. and Theresa A. Conhagen for $850,000.

Isle of Palms

Cynthia A. Rickards sold 57 Fairway Dunes Lane, Fairway Dunes Villas to Charles B. and Linda L. Blackwelder for $799,500.

East Shore Group LLC sold 3008 Hartnett Blvd. to April Simpson for $1.3 million.

James Island

Thomas S. and Martha G. Pieper sold 541 Cecilia Cove Drive, Lawton Harbor to Bradley David and Kristen P. Hottel for $335,000.

I assume that the easy availablity of this information in the paper and the County website also does away with having to have an agency relationship with someone before providing them with this information?

Different areas---- different customs. Interesting.

Wed Nov 14 2007, 08:55

Alain, here is some food for thought . First for Cliff, the Realtor that sent that information out to the neighborhood was not supposed to do that. She is only supposed to disclose that information to someone that she has an agency relationship with such as a prospective seller through a listing agreement or to a buyer through the Buyer's Representation Agreement. She could have listed which homes sold but NOT the final sales price.

Second, Alain, the benefit for you is it is nobody's business to know how much you paid for a house.

The system is simply flawed in my opinion. As a Realtor I can find out how much was financed on most properties in Texas which gives me the upper hand when I represent a buyer.

With enough time on their hands and if they know their way around a courthouse or the right website, anyone can pull the documents recorded. The document recorded is the Deed of Trust and that document shows only the amount that was borrowed, NOT the sales Price. At the time of closing, the buyer has the right to ask from the closing agent (usually the title company or the attorney) to white out the price. Same practice applies to Realtors, a buyer can request that the sales price not be disclosed and in the MLS the list price will be published as the sales price plus a "Z" this way appraisers and agents doing comps will not not to rely on that for their report.

The following was published last December by Drew Myers of Zillow. This is one of the reasons Zillow's website doesn't work in Texas. Begin quote "It seems many people are confused regarding what a non-disclosure state (or county) is. Hopefully, we can set the record straight for those of you wondering. What does the term "non-disclosure" really signify when it comes to property records? It’s a tricky question given that people or companies use the term differently given that exact definitions can vary by location.

The big, big picture is that in a non-disclosure state, transaction sale prices are not available to the public. There are two main causes for states being considered non-disclosure:

The first cause is that in most non-disclosure states or counties, when a real estate transaction occurs, the sale price is not required to be submitted to the county office (this is the case in Texas and North Dakota among others).
The second cause is that even though records are kept by a governing body, the records can not be distributed to the public. Such is the case in New Mexico, which "is a strict nondisclosure state, information about property can only be given to the registered owner of the property."
Since we rely on public county records as our primary data source driving our Zestimate algorithms (which take comparable sales prices into account), it poses a challenge to calculate accurate Zestimates when sale prices are not available. "end quote

Wed Nov 14 2007, 01:23

Salt Lake... Funny you should say that about privacy.... Just this week in my mailbox, was a large envelope containing an introductory letter from a local realtor...

In the envelope was a 2008 calendar (thank you), and CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) for homes in my area... a teaser I suppose to let me think about what my home is currently worth, and should I consider listing (with this agent)...

The CMA listed all the homes in my area that sold in the last 12 months.... including their final sale price... I suspect that everyone in my neighborhood also received one.

So essentially, without approval of any of the new home owners on that list, she went ahead and told everyone in my community what my new neighbors paid for their homes. So much for their privacy.....

The only new owners that weren't on that list were the three that sold FSBO this summer / fall... Kudos for them I suppose.

Wether you pay cash or not.. I don't want some "over zealous" sales person teling the world what i paid for my house... It defeats one of the purposes of being in a Non Disclosure state.

In doing this mail-out, did this real estate agent abuse her privileged access to the MLS? I tend to think so ( but I know I'll hear about some line in the Sales Contract where realtors are allowed to use the MLS information as they choose).. but I still think it's abuse.

Sun Nov 11 2007, 10:04

Utah is non disclosure and the sales price is not recorded.

Personally I like the privacy. If I pay cash and it is not listed across an MLS System, it is none of your business what I apid.

If it is listed you can put a term in the contract that states the sales price will not be disclosed in the MLS. I am a REALTOR and I like a non disclosure state.

Fri Oct 26 2007, 17:16

It is the choice of the voters. The benefit for you is that your private information is not always released to just anyone who asks or as a matter of public record. Do you really want to share with everyone the purchase price of your home? What benefit is that to you? In my opinion there is no benefit to realtors.

Fri Oct 26 2007, 10:21

Texas does have strict non-disclosure laws. They actually end up benefiting tax payers more than anything. As Realtors, we typically aren't fond of non-disclosure either. It's good to be able to pull up data on any home that sold and would give us a wider field of comparables to either price a home for sale at, or to negotiate the price for a home that a buyer is purchasing. The MLS gives us adequate data in most cases, but not all.

The real jest of non disclosure, however, is that the county is not automatically given sales records of your home purchase. This means that, despite the fact that you just bought a house for 250K it might be taxed at a lesser value. The good news is that if it's taxed on a value higher than sale value it is simple to dispute, but it won't automatically be taxed on full sale value.

Hopefully on your home purchase you will score a home run and be taxed at a lower value than full sale value!

Fri Oct 26 2007, 00:53

While Central Apprasiers would love full disclosure, most agree that nondisclosure has more to do with commercial proerty than residential.

Many commercial deals have leases, income streams, financing, and name value attached to them that affect the sale price. Their biggest concern is having to break these components out and havng to explain how they structured their commercial transaction in front of competitors.

To answer your last question, the downside to you as a home seller might be a delayed sale, or none at all. Consider the following scenario: You have owned your home for several years. Your home went through the normal appraisal process yearly and the taxable valaution was $250,000. The market value had increased faster than the taxable valuation and was now $325K. The buyer purchasing your home would be hit with a 30% increase in taxes his first full year. This would possibly cause him to not buy your home because it just cost him an additional $2000 per year in higher property taxes.

I hope this was helpful.

Jeff

Thu Oct 25 2007, 20:49