Here’s a perfect reason why I don’t vote for bond issues — for anything. It’s because I don’t trust our law makers to use the money wisely or as intended.
The city is using $475,000 from a 2006 election bond to purchase “less than a half-acre” as part of a development project in South Austin (on Del Curto Rd., between S. Lamar and Manchaca Rd.)
$475,000. For a small, vacant lot in South Austin.
A quick look at the Travis County Tax Appraisal Roll shows the value of homes and lots on Del Curto Rd.
- This 3,425 sqft home is situated on a .742 acre lot. The lot itself is valued at $240K. With the home, the total value of the property is $476K.
- This 1944 sqft home is situated on a .986 acre lot. The lot itself is valued at $78K. With the home, the total value of the property is $146K
- This 3187 sqft home is situated on a 1.12 acre lot. The lot itself is valued at $180K. With the home, the total value of the property is $473K.
- This 1306 sqft home is situated on a 1.02 acre lot. The lot itself is appraised at $180K. with the home, the total value of the property is $289K.
- This 1472 sqft home is situated on a 2.8 acre lot. The lot itself is appraised at $360K. With the home, the total value of the property is $463K.
Going through the entire appraisal roll for Del Curto Rd in the 78704 zip code, I can’t find a single other property where a half acre is worth anywhere near what the city of Austin paid this developer for this scrap of land.
Well done, City of Austin. Well done. Thanks for spending at least 4x as much for that piece of land than it’s actually worth.
If the City of Austin would like to build a park on the lot where my house currently sits (our lot is .52 acres), I’d be more than happy to sell it to you at 4x its current appraised value. I’ll throw the house in for free.
If you really feel like throwing money away, the best way to do it is to give the city a blank spending check via bonds.
How much do you want to bet that if it hadn’t belonged to a developer, it had belonged to an ordinary citizen…they would have just condemned the property and then paid the owner half what it was really worth.
I don’t think anyone will take your bet, Sailorcurt.
Wait till next year and see what those lots on Del Curto appraise for, with this sale as a comp to determine value.
Why, each of those lots is now worth at least $475,000. We should make sure the appraised value shows that.
Except that in this year’s election, we voted a new property cap limit that allows a maximum 10% appraisal value increase per year.
So, those lots will still be undervalued — at least compared to what the city was willing to payoff to a developer…
The MLS listings are a better guide to market value than TCAD numbers. I live in the area, and this isn’t far off. I haven’t checked MLS lately, but 3 or 4 months ago, there was some vacant land in the neighborhood for sale at $900,000-$1,000,000 per acre. (Some land in a flood plain was even listed or $500K/acre). There’s a 1.5 acre vacant track for sale on Thornton not far away for $1.4 million.
Also, if you take MLS listings for homes and back out the estimated value of the structure, you’ll see that the value of a 1/5-1/4 acre lot is at least $200K.
@ Robbie:
The 10% cap was for districts that don’t reappraise every year. TCAD is a yearly appraisal, I believe, so that doesn’t apply.
@ AC:
Those are listing prices, any idea of what they actually sold for?
No. I’m sure they sold for less. But, certainly with SF home prices, the MLS listings will be closer to the ballpark than TCAD.
AC-
I was going to say the same thing about the reliability of the tax appraisals. Where I live the appraisals have little relation to the real value. I have no idea how they do it in Austin but Trulia suggests that 1/12 acre and house will cost upwards of 300,000 dollars in the area.
It doesn’t seem like the amount paid by the city is that far off. Of course, people would be bitching if the city paid less than the true value.
TCAD is pretty far off the mark. I have seen TCAD be double and half the actual value in many cases. Lots are hard to evaluate because there are alot of different factors to take into account like dimensions, slope, and zoning. For instance in a certain neighborhood I remember two lots going for sale on the same street that were around the same size one for 200k and one for 600k. Though both sold for a little less than list. But they were valued differently because of the dimensions of the lot and zoning.
Anyway I would say based on sold data that lots in that area generally are around 900,000 an acre. So its probable the city got a fair deal.
Usually the city requires a third party appraiser to look at land before they will make a purchase. And in the cases I have seen they usually dont negotiate they will say we got an appraisal for X amount and we will pay X amount. I assume its more difficult to pay over X amount because of regulations?
It might be different if you are dealing with a large land transaction that the city council gets involved in.