{"id":293754,"date":"2026-04-30T20:57:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T20:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/293754\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T20:57:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T20:57:12","slug":"carmichael-mansion-sacramento-appraisal-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/293754\/","title":{"rendered":"Carmichael mansion – Sacramento Appraisal Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week I got to tour one of the most interesting listings in California right now, and I have a few thoughts about comps. If you didn\u2019t know, when Ronald Reagan was governor of California, he began building a huge mansion in Carmichael, and this unicorn property is now listed for sale.<\/p>\n

\"View<\/p>\n

UPCOMING SPEAKING GIGS:<\/p>\n

5\/7\/26 Empire State of Mind
5\/13\/26 Investor Webinar TBA
5\/14\/26 Event TBA
5\/15\/26 Nevada County TBA
5\/21\/26 Event TBA
5\/27\/26 Solano County TBA
6\/3\/26 Wisdom Wednesday in Elk Grove
8\/6\/26 PCAR Auburn
10\/2\/26 PCAR Rocklin
10\/21\/26 Coldwell Banker Sierra Oaks \/ EDH<\/p>\n

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THIS ESTATE<\/p>\n

The State of California built a Governor\u2019s mansion in the 1970s in Carmichael, which is about 10 miles from Downtown Sacramento. This mansion began construction under Ronald Reagan\u2019s leadership, and he would have likely lived there, but it was not completed until Jerry Brown took office (Brown refused to live in this house, which he dubbed \u201cThe Taj Majal\u201d). This home located at 2300 California Avenue has 8 bedrooms, 8 full bathrooms, and is just under 12,000 square feet of living area (11,984). If you want more information about where Reagan lived in Sacramento, check out a post I wrote years ago<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CURRENTLY LISTED FOR SALE AT $7.5M<\/p>\n

This estate is now listed for sale by Hattie Coleman. It\u2019s been on the market now for almost 200 days. Check it out here<\/a>. Thanks for letting me tour the place last week. I\u2019ve been meaning to get out there, and I\u2019m so glad I did.\u00a0<\/p>\n

AN OUTLIER ABOVE OTHER OUTLIERS<\/p>\n

This mansion sold previously for $4,062,500 per MLS ($4.1M in Tax Records), and it was an outlier above other outliers in the entire county. It originally sold from the government in 1983, but I\u2019m not sure what the price was then.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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And here\u2019s a look at Carmichael sales compared to the mansion. This is a good reminder that comps may not necessarily come from Carmichael. More on that below. Where would you choose comps?<\/p>\n

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THE ZESTIMATE CHASES THE LIST PRICE<\/p>\n

I had to check, and sure enough, the Zestimate chased the list price when this home was listed for sale. The Zestimate was at $5.2M, but as soon as it listed, it jumped to $7.1M. Look, online estimates are interesting, but I put zero weight on any of them. Like I always say, Zillow can\u2019t smell if 20 cats live there<\/a>. I just like to point out how this works because I think some consumers place too much emphasis on the Zestimate while not seeing the games that happen behind the scenes. And you\u2019re telling me it was only worth $2M in 2021 before jumping to $5M in 2024?\u00a0<\/p>\n

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And here\u2019s Homes dot com. Again, I don\u2019t put any weight on these estimates. I just think it\u2019s interesting to watch so we can compare these to what the property actually sells for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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SOME PICS OF THE PROPERTY FROM MY VISIT<\/p>\n

I took these pictures last Friday when visiting the property. This is the largest Mid-Century Modern home I\u2019ve personally seen. It doesn\u2019t get too much bigger than this in Sacramento when it comes to size. As you scroll, check out the time capsule next to the fountain. It\u2019s not to be opened for another fifty years, and I wonder what\u2019s in there. Look at those doors too. Imagine what those would cost today.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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WHAT DO WE DO FOR COMPS?\u00a0<\/p>\n

In real estate text books, comps are easy. There are always three model match sales in a one-mile radius over the past ninety days. But in this case, this property is a total outlier. What would someone pay for something with a substantially-larger lot size and square footage \u2013 not to mention some cool California history? On that note, are there bragging rights to own a home like this?<\/p>\n

QUESTIONS I WOULD ASK ABOUT COMPS<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a perfect answer for comps because this is a unicorn property, but here are a few ideas swirling through my mind. I suspect we would have to ask all of these questions if trying to value the home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What would it be worth without the history? And does the history add extra value?
\nWhat is the land worth? (substantial lot size)
\nWhat did it compare to during the prior sale in 2004? Granted, we have to take previous sales with a grain of salt because the sale may or may not represent the way the market sees the property today. Moreover, the property has been refreshed, so it\u2019s not necessarily the same home as back then.\u00a0
\nWhat are buyers willing to pay in the region for stately homes? My graphs above show this estate sold above any other home in Sacramento County at the time. I mention this because sometimes we have to pull comps from much further away if warranted. Yet, we can\u2019t forget this property is still tied to a location, so we have to be careful with this and make location adjustments if need. There is such a thing as too dissimilar though. I think of a real estate agent who told me the best comps were in Napa for his listing in Sacramento. Yeah, that doesn\u2019t smell reasonable.\u00a0\u00a0
\nWhere is the top of the price market? What is the most a buyer would pay for something like this before moving on to a different home?\u00a0
\nAre there other homes with historic or almost historic significance that might be a good frame of reference?\u00a0
\nWhat would this property cost to build today? Per Wikipedia<\/a>, \u201cIn 1972, the legislature budgeted $150,000 for preliminary plans for the mansion and $1.3 million for the construction of the building.\u201d
\nAre there any other non-residential uses possible for this estate? In my conversation with the public over the past week, I had a few people mention some potential uses beyond being owner occupied. What does zoning allow? And what is the highest and best use?\u00a0\u00a0
\nWhat other questions am I missing here?\u00a0<\/p>\n

POLARIZING REACTIONS<\/p>\n

I find Mid-Century Modern homes can be polarizing. What I mean is people either love them or hate them. So, some look at this home and think it\u2019s gorgeous, and others might think it\u2019s really plain. That\u2019s the nature of the beast with MCM architecture, I think. Ultimately, when it comes to real estate value, all that matters is what actual buyers think (we still get to have opinions though). Know what I\u2019m saying?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anyway, I hope that was interesting. Thanks for being here.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Questions: What do you think of this property? What would you do for comps? What did I miss? Anything to add?\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you liked this post,\u00a0subscribe by email\u00a0<\/a>(or\u00a0RSS).<\/a> Thanks for being here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week I got to tour one of the most interesting listings in California right now, and I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-293754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}