When it comes time to sell your home, you will need to know how much to list it for. However, if you list it at the wrong price point, you risk either getting too little for the house or not getting any offers at all.
Many people like to keep track of their home’s value even if they aren’t ready to sell. Â Knowing your home’s value and subtracting how much you still owe you can tell you one factor in your “net worth” i.e. how much you own minus how much you owe.
Note: You can down load a spreadsheet to help you calculate your net worth here.
What can you do to accurately gauge the value of your property?
1) Look At Recent Home Sales
The easiest way to determine how much your home is worth is to look for comparable homes that sold recently in your area. If a home with the same square footage, number of bedrooms and recent updates sold for $100,000, you should expect to get $100,000 for your house. One way to possibly get more for your home is to list it for a little less than market value. This may encourage more people to put offers in on the home, and the resulting bidding war could push the final offer price above market value. Two of the most popular sites to check home values are Zillow and Realtor.com both sites have apps that you can load on your phone. So if you see a home similar to yours, you can check its value while sitting in the street in front of their house. Of course you shouldn’t try to do this while driving 🙂 either have a passenger do it or pull over first.
The following video is a great explanation of calculating your home’s value.
2) Work With Your Real Estate Agent To Determine A Home’s Value
Real estate agents, like those at Brace Homes, generally insist that they are better qualified to assess your home’s value than simply going by a website since they have access to data that isn’t available online.
- First, your agent may find comparable home sales on the MLS database.
- Next, he or she can ask other agents for an idea as to how much the home is likely worth.
- Third, agents are professionals and work with this every day they also generally have access to an appraiser who can provide an educated estimate as to what the property’s value is.
Plus an agent can take specific features of your house into consideration when estimating value. For instance, will that inground pool add or subtract value? Â What about that deck that needs painting? Or the cracked driveway?
3) Price Your Home Per Square Foot
Another method is to price your home per square foot to come up with a value. If other homes in your area sell for $100 per square foot, you simply multiply 100 by the total area of the home to get its estimated value. Those who have finished a basement or added space to their home may see a large jump in their property values if they choose to use this method to calculate value.
However, be sure that the list price is something that the market can bear before using it as an anchor price to show to buyers. Check with your real estate agent to determine what type of square footage can be included in your area. For instance in some areas a screened porch is not counted… unless it is glassed in and has air conditioning. Generally, if the area is heated (or Air conditioned depending on the area) it may be considered part of the square footage. See this discussion for more details.
Selling your home can be a complex and challenging process even when everything is done properly. If you don’t list your home for a reasonable price, you may find that it takes even longer to sell and that you don’t get top dollar for it. Therefore, be sure to work with your real estate agent or other experts before you make your listing available to the public.
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