Do You Know the Difference? Excess Land vs. Surplus Land

Do You Know the Difference? Excess Land vs. Surplus Land

by | Feb 5, 2015 | Uncategorized

Most people would assume that the larger their lot, the more it’s worth. Surprisingly, that’s not always true. In fact, it may not even increase the value at all.   To explain this clearer, let’s say you have a beautiful home on a 1-acre lot in Maryland with a water-front view.  Your house, backyard, garage, garden, and basically everything you need to live comfortably sits on half an acre of that land.   So now you’ve  got this extra half-acre of land to the left of your house that’s just sitting there.  It takes some maintenance to keep this extra land, and an even longer time to mow the yard.  Suddenly, your family has an idea:   “Why don’t we sell just a portion of our property to someone else?  We don’t really need it anyway.”     It’s a great idea.  You call up a real estate appraiser to come and check out your property, only to get some bad news.  Apparently, Maryland requires a lot to have an area of at least 3/4 acres.  And you only have 1/2 an acre to spare.   We real estate appraisers call this surplus land.  Here’s the definition from the Real Estate Appraisal Dictionary (Fifth Edition): “Land that is not currently needed to support the existing improvement but cannot be separated from the property and sold off. Surplus land does not have an independent highest and best use and may or may not contribute value to the improved parcel.”   Since you’re a 1/4 of an acre short, zoning doesn’t allow you to split your land into multiple lots.   You’re stuck with this...
Can You Really Shop For Real Estate In 3D Now?

Can You Really Shop For Real Estate In 3D Now?

by | Jan 28, 2015 | Technology, Uncategorized

Most appraisals today will include a sketch of the property in the report. There are tons of options when it comes to choosing sketching software that can be used to create them. Imagine if appraisers began including 3-D sketches in their reports? How cool would that be? There is software that allows someone to create 3-D sketches. Google Sketch-up and Floor Planner are two popular software products. The only problem with those programs is that they are not very efficient nor accurate.  They can be incredibly time consuming, and really requires an expert’s touch and even special camera equipment and site-visits to create anything you’d want to show a potential buyer. Zillow is looking to change that. Recently Zillow’s StreetEasy unveiled its newest toy,  interactive 3-D floorplans.  For now, they are testing it in New York City. They will now be giving potential homebuyers a three-dimensional view of select listings.     “Adding 3-D floor plans to some of our most-viewed listings makes them even more valuable for shoppers. It’s empowering buyers with a better way to envision their new home.” said General Manager of StreetEasy Susan Daimler. It’s important to know the proportions of bedrooms, where the kitchen is located and imagine how you can flow from one room to the next. Only a floor plan can give you this vantage point.”     According to Floored founder and CEO David Eisenberg, “The Floored software that now powers StreetEasy’s 3-D floor plans reimagined how this process should work and now converts 2-D to 3-D models in a fraction of the time. We were excited to bring this technology to StreetEasy first.”  Using Floored’s...