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Finding out how much your house is worthHow much is my house worth? How much can I sell my house for? If you are a homeowner, these are probably questions you have asked. Homes and real estate are obviously different from most goods you buy and sell. Their value is affected by things like mortgage loan rates, improvements and repairs you have done, neighboring properties, the job market, condition of the property, etc. Most houses in the same neighborhood or section of a city will have similar valuations, assuming they are similar in size and features. In the appraisal market, these are known as "comps" or comparables. By seeing what else comparable has sold recently, you can get an idea how much your home is worth. Visiting open houses and checking out FOR SALE signs in your neighborhood is another way to get an idea of what home owners and realtors THINK a property is worth.
House Prices - Professional AppraisersWhen you are buying or selling a house and getting a loan, a property appraisal is almost always required. Professional appraisers are employed by mortgage and lending companies to provide a good approximation of the property, since the loan is based on how much the house it worth. For example, a bank won't loan you $300,000 to buy a run down house that is appraised at just $250K. What do appraisers do? Sometimes they actually walk through your home and measure rooms, examine kitchen upgrades, check out the condition of the landscaping, and more. Sometimes they just drive by and make sure the house is standing in a decent neighborhood, and then compare it to what has sold recently in the neighborhood, making changes (additions and subtractions) for any variations between your home and those other homes -- adding $25K to the value for a better view lot, subtracting $10K for a roof that need to be replaced, adding $40K for the recent kitchen remodel, etc. An average value is arrived at against these comparables, and that is your appraised value. When you try to figure out the value of your own home, you will be doing this exact same work - figuring out current market conditions for other homes that have sold, and then figuring out how your property should be valued in comparison.House Valuation WebsitesA number of websites have information about how much houses are worth. A recent one that has made a big splash is Zillow.com. On Zillow, you can browse maps on entire neighborhoods, with estimates of how much each house is worth. If you are the owner of the property, you can register with Zillow to update information on the home, such as size, improvements, or any other factors that would affect its value. This way, when others browse the site, they will see a more accurate listing of your homes price. Zillow gathers information from real estate transactions and public tax records to come up with its valuations. In our tests, we could their information was sometimes out of date and inaccurate - sometimes off by more than 25%. Overall this is a good site and a good tool though, and we recommend it if you want to get an idea of what your house would sell for. We also liked Domania.com - it is easy to use and no one contacts you. You simply put in an address you are interested in and they bring up a list of recent property sales in the area, with information on price, square footage, tax valuations, lot size, year built, etc. You can get both sales history and estimate valuations. Another site that offers free home valuations is ValueMyHouse.com. Unfortunately, they require you to fill out your personal contact information with the promise that a real estate professional will contact you with your valuation -- if you are willing to go through this lead generation process, you are welcome to, but we prefer instant, free appraisals or estimates and don't want to deal with someone trying to sell me their services. Yahoo also has a house value feature on its real estate section, but we had no luck when we plugged in a few sample addresses - three times out of three it came up with messages saying so such property - ouch! Not real accurate at this time.Using a RealtorMost realtors are also happy to talk to you about how much your property might be worth. They are constantly in touch with buyers and sellers, and many offer free estimates in the hopes of finding prospective sellers, from which they will earn their generous commissions. We even get post card mailers in our mailbox from local realtors with come on lines like "Your neighbors house just sold for $X. How much is your house worth? Call me!". So take them up on their offers. Once they know the details of your house and see the condition it is in, they can probably give you a pretty good estimate, allowing you to see how much your home has appreciated in the recent real estate boom.
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