St. Louis Real Estate Voice vs. St. Louis Post Dispatch

St. Louis Real Estate Tax Assesment: my phone call to the snowman!

I spoke with some very nice people that became very nervous when I made it clear about the purpose of the call, then the transferring began. I finally landed . . .thud. . .on Russ’s telephone. . .a very nice man. I told Russ about my interest in the St. Louis Post Dispatch article and identified myself as a Realtor. I told him I was curious as to why my data was so different from the St. Louis County Records?

Me: Russ, why does my data differ from your data.
Russ: Ours is older, we have lower values and we are trying to catch up.

Me: Huh?
Me: I looked at the same time period specified in your report. . .how could your data be older?
I broke the data down by SOLD, and School District, and Median Value.
Russ: Right, but you have fresh data, ours is older and we have lower values and we’re trying to catch up.

Me: So how do I explain to a client that his home really didn’t appreciate 20% over the last two years?
He thinks I’m trying to low ball him to make a quick sale or your trying to screw him!
Russ: Tell him we have older data, lower values, and are trying to catch up!

Me: OH! OK, well thanks for your time explaining it to me.
Russ: Sure, no problem.

So, my interpretation of this is that they have lower values, older data, and are trying to catch up. . .just look out for the KETCHUP!

Click here to read Part 1

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 at 7:58 am and is filed under Real Estate News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.