My $52,000 lesson from comparing tax records on Mecklenburg's site

I was looking at a listing in Plaza Midwood last month and saw a house priced at $410k. Thought it was a steal until I pulled the actual tax assessment from the Mecklenburg County site. The city had it valued at $358k, which was fine, but the land was assessed at $152k and the structure at $206k. Then I noticed the seller bought it in 2019 for $295k, and the kitchen permit from 2021 was only $8,500. So they're asking $115k over purchase plus a cheap flip. That's when it hit me, everyone should spend 20 minutes checking those records before even touring. The realtor kept saying the comps justified it, but two of the three comps she used are in a flood zone near Briar Creek. Has anyone else caught a bad comp or inflated price just by digging into the county's public data? I'll never skip that step again.

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umamoore15d ago

and my buddy almost got burned the exact same way last year in Dilworth. He found a cute bungalow listed for $489k, and the realtor was pushing hard saying it was priced under market. My friend spent a whole Sunday going through the county records and found the seller had only paid $312k for it two years earlier, and the only permit on file was for a new water heater. The comps the agent sent over were all from a street that backs up to the railroad tracks, not even the same neighborhood vibe. He ended up walking away and the house sat on the market for like eight months before they dropped it to $445k. It's wild how much time you can save by just doing that twenty minute check before you fall in love with a place. Now he won't even look at a property without me sending him the tax history first.