The Truth About Sales Disclosure in Texas
What did you pay for your home ?
Would you want people to know?
"The public" that is...
That's a question most normal people want to know before they buy a resale.
Of course, you might never find that out - but there are a few ways to try.
Texas is a non-disclosure state so you have your privacy, many other
states in the US disclose this information to the public.
In Texas - A Realtor has access to sold comparables from the MLS - that
go back 6 years or so - so you can find like properties that sold by neighborhood
and any other detailed criteria to find out how much you should sell your
home for.
So, the sale of your home is disclosed - just not so the general public can see
how much you spent.
Did you know that you can also request that your home sale not be
disclosed on a sales contract?
Most people do not know this and it really is not discussed too openly.
As a seller or buyer you can request and put in writing that "the sales price
not be disclosed" for whatever reason you wish. This is usually done on the
special provisions part of the contract. Just ask your agent or lawyer to write
it in.
However, all parties must agree to this - buyers, sellers, agent, brokers etc.
What happens is when a homes is sold the listing agent or broker will enter the
sales price in the MLS and instead of putting the actual sales price a "Z" is
entered next to the original list price- like this -$550,000 z.
When a Realtor, broker appraiser, builder or whoever pulls ups comps this is
signal that the true sales price has not been disclosed.
Most the the time this will help comps in the neighborhood because if someone
had a foreclosure or something bad happen and the property sold for less then
it should - it will pull the dollar per sq ft down in the area.
Of course, you have no control over who enters what because every listing agent
is required to enter this information on a property after it has closed escrow.
Sellers in this state have some breathing room because it is harder to find out
what a property sold for.
Really, in real estate it doesn't matter what someone paid for their property at all.
What matters is the current market value in a particular point in time and the
comps give an idea of what you should reasonably sell or buy a house for.
Texas is considering to make this information pubic, as most states make this
information available to all. Let's see what happens.
