What’s My Home Worth?

What's My Howell Home Worth?

Everybody wonders about their home’s real value.  I have and I’ll bet you have, too.  So how do you find out? 

Let’s say you just want a number, no pesky real estate agents looking for a listing, something free, something easy.  Hmm, there’s a lot of free stuff on the internet, start there!  And yes, you can get a number without too much trouble, but what if it’s incorrect? (It often is, by the way.)

Too high and you’ll be disappointed if you try to sell it alone (for sale by owner), refinance (refi) or take out an equity loan.  Too low and you’ll feel sad, perhaps even depressed.  So what’s the answer?

Unless you’re in a really small neighborhood, you can keep track of the home listings and their sale prices.  That’s OK, but what if those properties are bigger, smaller, older, newer, a different architecture or on a better or worse lot?  What if your home has updates and the others don’t?  Or vice-versa.  That’s the problem with ‘free’ valuations from a large real estate aggregator site.  (Aggregator sites collect data from all over and put into one location.)  And there are plenty of them out there. They’re wildly inaccurate in many cases.

Real estate professionals have access to tools other than just the MLS.  Sadly, many agents ignore them, are afraid of them, don’t want to take the time and effort to learn them, or just think the old ways are still OK.  They don’t do their clients justice and they don’t do themselves justice, either.

Two Great Ways to Determine Your Home’s Worth

• ·      Have a LOCAL full-time real estate agent out to look at your house.  Do your homework, too.  Have a list of capital improvements for the last 10 years (think new roof, new furnace, additions, remodeled kitchen or bath – NOT carpet and paint). Energy saving improvements are also helpful to know.

• ·      The other way costs you.  Hire an appraiser. If you do this, please, again, use a local appraisal company. They are ‘invested’ in their own community. They know things that out of area appraisers won’t, and they’ll likely respond quicker. 

Whether it’s an agent or an appraiser, they should take the time to walk through your home and around the outside.  Hopefully, they’ll drive through the neighborhood, too, even if they’ve been there before.  All of these things are important to getting to the right value.

If you’re just curious, go the internet aggregator route (think “Z”, “T”, or any number that begin with “H”).  Just don’t lose sleep over a low number or max out your credit cards based on a high number.  If you’re thinking of selling you’ll definitely want to talk with an agent or an appraiser. That’s how you really find out what your house is worth.

If you’re local to me (Livingston, west Oakland, north Washtenaw Counties), I’d be happy to give you a well-explained and documented opinion that will tell you what your house is worth. You can reach me through email or my facebook page. And don’t forget to ask me about my ‘Marketing Edge’ plan.

Howell Home Photo Credit - Robert Smith