Weekly Deal Analysis - Auctions

The only one this week with room, and the room looks ordinary rather than too good

Our value, finished

$1,180,000

Repairs, estimated

$180,000

Our maximum bid

$645,000

A four bedroom, three bath of roughly 2,760 square feet in Ridgefield, north of Vancouver. The opening bid posted on Tuesday, after our Monday pull, at about $516,000 against a ceiling of roughly $645,000. Call it $129,000 of room.

The first thing worth saying is what this bid is not. Last week we flagged a property whose opening bid sat near a fifth of its finished value, because that pattern is the signature of a junior deed of trust where the senior loan survives the sale and the winner inherits it. This one opens at about 44 cents on our estimate of finished value, which is an ordinary first-position number. That is mildly reassuring and it is not proof of anything. Pull title anyway.

The second thing is the softness in our own number, and it cuts both ways. Clark County has no benchmark in our zip model, so the finished value here rests entirely on an automated valuation. An automated model estimates what a house is worth as it stands today, not after repairs, and we then subtract a repair budget from it on top. If the house needs real work that makes our ceiling conservative. If the model is simply off, the ceiling is wrong in whichever direction the model is wrong. Comps before you bid this one, not after.

Before you bid

• Finished value is an automated estimate, not comps - Clark County has no benchmark in our model and the entire number rests on it
• Lien position unverified - an ordinary-looking opening bid is not evidence of first position
• No interior access, so the repair figure assumes worst case
• Assume occupied until proven otherwise - budget cash-for-keys and a timeline

Our value, finished

$1,260,000

Our maximum bid

$640,000

The largest and most valuable house on the list, about 3,670 square feet, four bed three bath in Mukilteo. No opening bid published as of Tuesday. If one posts below our ceiling this is the most interesting property of the week by a distance. If it opens anywhere near value, walk. As with Ridgefield the finished value is an automated estimate rather than comps, so treat the ceiling as a starting point.

Our value, finished

$950,000

Our maximum bid

$460,000

Five bedrooms, three baths, about 3,170 square feet. Our zip model and the automated valuation land within a few percent of each other here, which is worth more than either number on its own. That makes this the best-supported ceiling on the list, even though no bid has posted yet.

Our value, finished

$810,000

Our maximum bid

$430,000

About 2,110 square feet with three bedrooms and, on the public record, a single bathroom. On a house that size in that market this is either the cheapest value-add on the list or a sign the record is out of date. Either way it is the first thing we would want to see inside about, and at a trustee sale you generally cannot.

Our value, finished

$776,000

Our maximum bid

$361,000

We are publishing this one mainly to flag a disagreement rather than bury it. The two methods we use to sanity-check each other land a long way apart on this house, far enough that we would not trust either on its own. We have published the more conservative of them, because the neighbourhood-level view is the one we can actually check and the other rests on a house none of us has been inside.

The number above is therefore a floor we are fairly confident about rather than a value we would defend. What it really means in practice is that this address needs comps more than any other on the list, and that if it opens cheap the upside may be better than our ceiling suggests. Do the work before you decide that, not after.

Our value, finished

$765,000

Our maximum bid

$362,000

Four bed, three bath, about 2,660 square feet, and the only King County house on this week's list we can put a number on at all. No opening bid published yet.