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NEW RULE: A 3-YEAR “GOOGLE” HISTORY??
While the “topic” is just meant to get your attention,
checking the “subject property” on Google
(or any search engine) can sometimes yield some very interesting and meaningful
results. Remember, USPAP requires that we consider any “relevant
information” about the subject property, neighborhood or comparables in our
“scope of work,” and indicate whether the factor has an effect on marketability
or impact on the value of the property. This note is meant to give you a few
examples of the kind of information that might be found,
as well as some useful tips for searches
that will limit your “search results”
to just the subject property, project,
neighborhood or comparables.
While we
should always be familiar with our market area, we can’t possibly know the
history of every property. Information on the web, about the subject,
adjacent properties, project, neighborhood or specific comparables, could be
relevant and might include:
Ø
Properties or projects that are currently (or were previously) the subject of
litigation (construction defects, HOA issues, external problems).
Ø
Properties of historical interest or referenced on a list of properties designed
or built by a notable architect, builder or owner.
Ø
Properties “stigmatized” by a prior violent or infamous crime.
Ø
Subject or an adjacent property that was previously the location of a drug lab,
where hazardous material may have been (and may still be) present.
Ø
A property that was previously the site of a fire, industrial accident or
hazardous waste spill that could have current implications.
Ø
Properties referenced in local municipal reports or “meeting minutes” (usually
pdf’s) with regard to traffic issues, noise problems, environmental reports,
etc.
Ø
Sales or Listing information, other than the MLS, that previous brokers or
sellers may have published.
Ø
Notable properties that were used in movies/TV productions or referenced on
“celebrity maps.”
Not all of
these issues would necessarily lead to a favorable or an unfavorable effect on
the subject property, but the appraiser must at least be aware of the situation,
in order to analyze the possible effect on the property and to report any
meaningful information.
It is
possible that even favorable information may not be reported in current MLS
records, and as you already know, unfavorable information is concealed
all of the time. Just prior to an inspection, I once discovered (from a Google
search), that the subject had still been listed as a “red-tagged” property 8
years after the Northridge earthquake (and 2-years prior to my inspection).
This information led to the discovery that repairs, required by the City, were
still not completed (although occupied, it was still officially “red-tagged”)
and many other serious problems were not really repaired, just concealed from
view by painting and installing new flooring.
When
searching for information on specific properties, there are ways to search that
will limit your results, so that you will not be buried by 10,000+ matches. For
instance, a search of 15732 Virginia Avenue will result in 25,200 matches
including many properties with the address number 15732 in Virginia, West
Virginia or Virginia Beach, and any property on Virginia Avenue in the 15732 zip
code (Creekside, Pennsylvania).
To limit the search results to just properties with the subject address put
quote marks at the beginning and end of the phrase you are searching. So in the
example, you would search “15732 Virginia”
which gets you down to
the most relevant matches and to further limit your results type in a plus (+)
sign and then another relevant term such as the city or zip code. For instance
“15732 Virginia” + Bellflower
returns 24 listings, all related to the same property or with references to
that property. Also, use the minus (-) sign to eliminate unwanted results,
so that information on the City of Lake Forest, California, could be
searched as “Lake Forest, CA” -Illinois
to reduce the number of references to Lake Forest, Illinois. In
addition, if you know the type of file you are looking for, such as Adobe
Acrobat, an image, map, spreadsheet, web page, etc., you may want to add a +
filetype:pdf (or jpg, tif, xls, html, etc.). So the example above is searched
as “15732 Virginia” + Bellflower +
filetype:pdf which may have limited the results too much, as we are
now down to 2 matches (about garage sales).
Also, “Google Alerts” allows you to track
information, going forward, on up to 1,000 specific topics, clients,
properties, cities or neighborhoods, however, you must use the techniques listed
above, to limit your results, or you will be buried in unrelated
information. Say you wanted to track information about your favorite USPAP
Instructor. If you entered “Brian Mathews” +
“USPAP Instructor” you would hopefully be spared from receiving
constant “Google Alert” e-mails regarding an apparently famous, but unbelievably
annoying librarian at Georgia Tech.
Although the
internet puts an incredible amount of information at our fingertips, it
sometimes is just too much to sift through.
Smart searches can limit your results to the most relevant matches
and allow us, as appraisers, to discover important information, about the
subject, neighborhood and/or comparables, without adding a significant amount of
time to the completion of our appraisal assignments.
- Affiliated Appraisers Workshop
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