For homeowners in Stockton, Lodi, Manteca, Tracy and Ripon who are thinking about selling in the next twelve months
A written, appraisal-grade opinion of value on your San Joaquin County home, prepared at no cost by a broker who spent eight years as a licensed real estate appraiser before he ever took a listing. No obligation. No pressure to sign anything.
Scope of work
Most listing appointments are a pitch with a number stapled to the end. This one runs the other direction.
Why the number on your Zillow estimate behaves so differently in Stockton than it does in Sacramento, and what it costs you in the first fourteen days on market.
How to tell in under ten minutes whether an agent actually priced your home or simply agreed with the number you wanted to hear.
What your locked mortgage rate is worth in real dollars at sale, and how to put a defensible figure on it instead of a feeling.
The repairs San Joaquin County buyers still pay a premium for, and the ones that almost never return what you spend on them.
What happens to your net proceeds for every week a listing sits past day twenty one, run on your numbers rather than a national average.
Whether this is the right year for you to sell at all. Sometimes the honest answer is no, and you'll hear it.
Market conditions
Three agents come through your house. Two give you a realistic number. One gives you a number that is forty thousand dollars higher, and says it with total confidence. You are a human being, so you hire that one. Here is what usually happens next.
Listed high. The photos are good, the sign goes up, and the first weekend is busy.
Showings thin out. No offers. Your agent says the market is slow right now.
First price reduction. Buyers who watch this zip code notice, and start waiting for the next one.
Second reduction. You are now priced below what an accurate list price would have brought in week one.
Buyers stop asking what it's worth and start asking what's wrong with it. That question costs more than the price cuts did.
Nothing about that sequence is caused by the market. It is caused by a number that was chosen to win a listing appointment instead of to sell a house.
Approach to value
I spent eight years as a licensed appraiser before I sold a single house. Appraisers are paid to be right, not to be hired, and the habit stuck. Your valuation gets built the same way one built for a lender or a judge gets built.
Phase one
I walk the property myself and record condition, layout, upgrades and defects. No assistant, no drive-by, no square footage copied from an old listing.
Phase two
Comparable sales chosen from your actual competing market, then adjusted line by line for size, age, condition, lot and location. You see the grid and the reasoning behind every line.
Phase three
A low, middle and high range with a recommended list price, plus what each price would likely do to your days on market and your net at close.
Qualifications of the broker
I started in San Joaquin County real estate in 2000 as an appraiser, valuing property for lenders who had no interest in a flattering answer. I moved into sales, earned my broker's license in 2021, and built a practice around the transactions other agents route around: divorce, probate, trust and estate sales, and partition actions where the court is watching.
Attorneys and court-appointed referees hire me because my valuations survive cross-examination. That is a considerably higher bar than a listing appointment, and your home gets the same standard.
Adjustment grid
Credentials on their own are decoration. Here is the adjustment each one makes to your sale.
| What I bring | What it does for your sale |
|---|---|
| Eight years as a licensed appraiser | Your list price is built from adjusted comparable sales, so it holds up when a buyer's lender orders an appraisal and the deal has to survive it. |
| Written adjustment grid with every valuation | You can see exactly why each comparable moved your number up or down, and push back on any line you disagree with. |
| Broker, not a licensed agent reporting to one | Decisions on your file get made by the person you actually hired, the same day you call. |
| Court-facing valuation experience | If your sale involves a divorce, an estate, a trust or co-owners who disagree, none of it is new territory and none of it stalls the sale. |
| Twenty years working this specific market | Pricing reflects your block and your school boundary, not a countywide average that flattens both. |
| Pre-listing inspections paid for by my team | Problems get found before a buyer's inspector finds them, which is the difference between a repair and a renegotiation. |
| I attend the showings and the inspections | The person who priced your home is the person answering questions about it, so nothing gets explained wrong. |
Client commentary
Lance told us in the first ten minutes that our house wasn't worth what the other agent quoted, and showed us exactly why on paper. We priced it his way and had an accepted offer at nine days, at full price.
Karen T. · Stockton · 2025
We were in the middle of a difficult divorce and needed someone neutral both sides could trust. Lance walked us through his numbers line by line and never once made it feel like a sales pitch.
Michael R. · Lodi · 2024
As the trustee on my mother's estate I needed a valuation that would hold up with the other beneficiaries. Lance's report was thorough enough that nobody questioned it.
Denise A. · Manteca · 2025
Your VIP seller benefits
The valuation is free to anyone who asks, listing or not. The four services under it are covered by The McHan Team when you list your home with us.
What it costs you
Nothing, up front or otherwise
My commission is earned at closing and nowhere else, and we'll discuss it openly on the call rather than burying it on a web page. The valuation carries no obligation whatsoever. If the honest answer is that you should wait a year, that's the answer you'll get.
Limiting conditions
Cancel
Any
time
No fee
Give me written notice any time before we've accepted an offer and I'll cancel the listing agreement. No cancellation fee, no marketing invoice, no argument. Every dollar spent on your pest inspection, roof inspection, staging and cleaning stays spent by me.
A twelve month listing agreement you can't get out of protects the agent. This protects you. I'd rather earn the second month than trap you in it.
On availability: I attend my own showings and inspections, which puts a real ceiling on how many listings I can take at once. Call to check current openings — if we're full when you call, I'll tell you so rather than take the listing and hand you off.
Reconciliation
Send the four fields on the right and I'll call you within one business day to schedule a walkthrough. The visit takes about forty five minutes. You'll have your written valuation within three business days of that visit.
One thing only: fill in the form or call. There's nothing else to sign up for and no newsletter attached to it.
Addendum
P.S.
To recap: a written valuation built the way an appraiser builds one, at no cost and with no obligation. If you go on to list with The McHan Team, your pest inspection, roof inspection, staging consultation and pre-photography house cleaning are covered too, roughly eighteen hundred dollars of work you would otherwise pay for out of your proceeds. And you can cancel the agreement any time before an offer is accepted, with no fee.
The reason to do this before you interview agents rather than after is simple. Once three people have quoted you three prices, the highest number is already anchored in your head, and it is very hard to unhear. The list price you choose in week one determines almost everything that follows. It's worth forty five minutes.