Thinking of selling your home and wondering the best way to determine what your home is worth?
This is the most popular question asked by home sellers and we are here to give you the scoop!
Finding the value of your home and knowing how to price it right is crucial to selling fast and for top dollar.
The good news is there are many things you can do to increase your home’s worth, if you are unhappy with its current value. Here are a few related articles on that:
Dress to Impress to Sell Your House Quickly
Thinking of Selling Your Home? Clean Everything…Then Clean it Again
Simple, Quick and Inexpensive Things You Can Do to Prepare Your Home for Sale
Let’s dig in to some of the most frequent questions we receive in relation to home value and pricing.
How do I determine my home’s value?
There are numerous aspects that determine a home’s value. The most common method is by completing a comparative market analysis. This is an in-depth assessment of recently sold homes in the past 6-12 months, that are comparable to yours. Although this cannot guarantee what your home will sell for, if performed by an experienced real estate agent, it should give you a healthy idea of the price range your home fits in.
This analysis considers many features beyond just your home; the local area, school district and overall neighborhood, are a few. When it comes to features within your home, here are the most common considerations included in the comparative market analysis:
- Square footage
- Number of bedrooms
- Number of bathrooms
- Upgrades to kitchen and bathrooms
- Window quality
- Roof age
- Lot size
An experienced agent will be able to determine the updates you may need to make to get your home sold for the price point you are hoping for.
What is the assessed value and why is it different than the market value?
The assessed value of your home is used to calculate the taxes in your local area. It really has no relation to the market (or appraised) value of your home.
This may seem confusing but just remember that the assessed value is for determining yearly taxes on the home and has no impact or relation to the actual value of your home.
For additional clarity, below are the actual definitions of each, according to Investopedia:
Assessed Value: The dollar value assigned to a property to measure applicable taxes. Assessed valuation determines the value of a residence for tax purposes and takes comparable home sales and inspections into consideration. In general, the assessed value tends to be lower than the appraisal fair market value of property.
Market Value: The amount for which something can be sold on a given market.
What is the difference between list price and sale price? Should I list higher to leave room for negotiations?
The list price is the price a home is listed for sale. The sale price is the price the home sells for. An experienced real estate agent should be able to suggest a list price that ends up being very close to the final sale price.
In terms of leaving room for negotiations, remember that a well-priced home is proven to sell quickly and very close to the listing price. Pricing high to negotiate to a lower amount later, can narrow your buyer pool and increase the time your home sits on the market.
Can I determine my home’s value from internet calculators like Zillow?
The rule of thumb is you can use these calculators to get a general idea of what your home could be worth; however, these do not determine the actual value of your home.
Home prices fluctuate based on many different variables and these types of sites use computer generated home values based on calculations and formulas. You really need to have an appraiser or experienced real estate agent involved to accurately determine the value of your home.
It’s ok to visit these sites to get a preliminary idea, but don’t hold the market to this number because chances are it could be anywhere from $5,000-$30,000 off or more.
We hope this post helped to answer some typical questions on how to find out what your home is worth.
If you have one we haven’t answered here, leave a comment below with your question and we will include it in a future post!
Thinking of selling your home soon? Download the Ultimate Home Sellers’ Checklist provided by AdvantageU. It’s free and has valuable information on the steps you need to take to get your home sold.
