Map: Overvalued Neighborhoods in Hyattsville

Last week, we mapped real estate values in Hyattsville. Today we take a second look at those numbers to try and see which neighborhoods might be over and under valued. 

What you are looking at is a map which colors Hyattsville's neighborhoods by the percent above or below list price at which nearby homes sold last year. Red means homes had a hard time making their list price, yellow means they broke even, and green means they exceeded the list price. 

Overall, if you sold a home in Hyattsville last year, chances are you sold it for something pretty close to what you were asking for. The average house in Hyattsville last year sold at 1.7 percent below list price. But some surprising neighborhoods, including the Old Hyattsville area, had a very hard time meeting their list prices on the open market.

According to 2012 home sales data from the Metropolitan Region Information System, homes sold in Hyattsville at an average two percent below their list prices. Of the 123 homes sold in Hyattsville last year, 45 percent sold at or above their list price. Plotting list and sale price data into a map reveals the areas under and overvalued by real estate list prices. 

Neighborhoods surrounding Hyattsville Middle School, as well as neighborhoods to the north of Magruder Park, tended to command a sale price close to or above their list price.

Neighborhoods in Southern Hyattsville, home to some of the oldest and most expensive houses which sold last year in the city, had the hardest time meeting their list prices. In the neighborhood bound by Jefferson Street, Route 1 and 38th Avenue, only four of the  16 houses there sold at or above their list price.

Elsewhere, neighborhoods bordering Queens Chapel Road had a slightly hard time reaching their list price. 

Setting the list price involves a certain amount of economic gamesmanship. The seller wants to set an initial bargaining price high enough to get a favorable sale price, but low enough that potential buyers will not be scared away. 

Neighborhoods where homes tended to sell for below their list price could have been affected by a lack of demand and over-valuing. 

Baltimore Sun business reporter Jamie Smith Hopkins writes that a too-high list price can significantly delay the sale of a home.

"Plenty of buyers will snort at the asking price and click on the next listing, rather than coming out to look and making a much lower offer the owner might have been willing to take. And some folks who would have been ideal prospective buyers won't even see the online listing information because it's in the wrong price category," wrote Hopkins in a 2011 blog post, The risk in asking too much for your house.

Additionally, a neighborhood's ability to sell over list price could indicate an area of healthy buyer interest, one where the seller may be able to play multiple offers off each other to raise the final sale price.