Are You Selling?

 

How to Find the True Value of Your Home

The time has come to sell your home and one of the things that you have to do is determine its true value. Homes change over time. When you bought yours 20 or 30 years ago it was pegged at a certain price because of its condition, but you may have made additions and repairs that have increased its value, or it could be neglected and have lost some value. Either way, you need to know its value before you sell so that you can know how much to ask the market for. Here is how you can do that:

•    Look at similar homes in the neighborhood that have sold recently and find out how much they sold for. They should be in more or less the same condition as yours. Talk to the sellers to find out how easy it was to get buyers at the price they were asking for.

•    Go around your home and note all the recent improvements that you have made. It could be a new roof, double glazed windows, rewiring, a new boiler or even new cabinets in your kitchen – all these things contribute to the value of your home.

•    You can also test the waters by looking online on websites like Zillow. All you need to do is find your address, and the website will show you a blue line on a graph of your home’s value, either trending upward or downward. There will be another line, a green one, that shows you the average value of homes similar to yours in your city. This gives you a fair idea of what the market is willing to pay for your home. If the line is trending downwards and you think your home can fetch more it may be a good idea to wait a while and let property values rise.

Determining Home Values

•    You can also use Zillow to find out the competition’s pricing – key in addresses of homes near you that are on sale to find out how much the owners are asking for.

All these methods can help you determine a rough value of your home, but if you want to narrow it down to an exact figure it is best to hire a real estate agent who is an expert in home valuation. They will come in and do a full survey of your home, including the roof and the basement to determine that it is sound.

They will also assess any improvements that you may have added in recent years as these will factor into the cost of the home. A real estate agent is best because they do what a computer cannot. If, for example, you have a brand new kitchen but your roof is 20 years old a computer will have a hard time coming up with an estimate, but a real estate agent will be able to use his intelligence to come up with a market value that can help sell your home. Better yet, they will also help you sell the home.