Quote Originally Posted by indysteel View Post
Ugh. It's so depressing.

I'm going to try to get my hands on the appraisal to check for any obvious errors. I have a feeling I know why it dropped so much. The house immediately next door to us recently sold after being on the market for some time. I was a flip purchased from an estate sale for pennies. Another house had been on the market forever with some substantial price drops. The house itself was huge, and I have a feeling that there was something really wrong with it because they could hardly give it away. Ours, in contrast, has sold twice now in the last five or so years and, each time, was on the market for less than a month. It's a very attractive house and, unlike many of our neighbors, we have both a garage and a yard both of which add a lot of value since in our area most homes have neither.
My brother purchased his house for $85,000 15 years ago and had a value of $175,000 four years ago.

His neighbor put his house on the market four years ago and it sat... for four years. It finally sold at auction for $25,000 (for a five bedroom Victorian house in decent shape), the new owner is a developer who promptly moved in 10 people with section 8 vouchers.

My brother had his house reappraised this summer to see if he could escape the hell that is his new reality... his house is now worth $75,000.