About Online House Appraisals
A house appraisal is an estimated value of your home. In most cases, it's the first step in a mortgage process. Your real estate agent will also ask you to have your house appraised if you plan to sell it. Basically, the result of your appraisal is the market value of your house or an estimate of how much buyers are willing to pay. Traditionally you would have to hire an appraiser, but there are websites where you can do the work by yourself.
Other People Are Reading
-
Methods
-
A professional appraiser will visit your home and inspect its size, condition and quality. The appraiser will then give you a detailed report of how much your home should cost compared with similar ones in the area. Comparisons are mostly in terms of square footage, appearance and amenities.
An online house appraisal website, using automated valuation models, will do the same thing for you. All you need to do is input information to determine your house's condition. The system will then compare your details with similar house appraisals it has in your area, which will become the basis for the value of your home.
Whether professionally done or automated, all house appraisals are just opinions of value and must not be misconstrued as the actual price.
Significance
-
Getting an online house appraisal can guide you through selling or getting a mortgage. Knowing how much a property appraises for will help you gauge the fairness of the asking price. If you are selling, it lets you know how much you should sell for and assures the buyer that you are not selling too high.
You may also want to find out how much your home equity increases or decreases after a certain period of time; you can do that with a home appraisal, too.
-
Cost
-
Having a professional do the appraisals for you can cost quite a bit. Home Buyers, an online information center that caters to families seeking a new home, says that the cost is usually $300 to $500 as of 2009.
Getting a free online house appraisal is enough if you have not yet decided about selling your house or getting a mortgage. However, free online house appraisals can give you only so much information. If you wish to get a full-blown report, you may need to pay, but it won't be as costly as hiring a professional to do it. Full reports can cost up to $29.95 as of 2010, per the rates of Electronic Appraiser as quoted in MSN Money Central's case study.
Accuracy
-
Many are a bit hesitant to try online appraisal tools, thinking that they may not be as accurate as a professional. However, in an interview conducted by Money Central, even Realtors such as Steve Casper of Cincinnati say that online house appraisal tools have a 5 percent margin of error.
The tool can even get better as online house appraisals become a booming industry. Most websites spend ample time researching for more accurate information coming from tax assessors, satellite photo records, real estate databases, the Census Bureau and other sources of public and private records.
Some Realtors would say, though, that neither professionally done appraisals nor online house appraisals are exact science. Other factors may affect the value of your house that may not be calculated.
Comparisons
-
The MSN case study found that the leading sites in online house appraisals include Zillow, RealtyTrac, Domania and Electronic Appraiser. According to the study, Zillow has proved to online users how accurate their estimates are in metropolitan areas. In fact, Amy Bohutinsky of Zillow told MSN that it now has data for 65 million homes and estimates on 47 million.
As for quick updates on real estate sales prices, the study shows that RealtyTrac can be the most reliable one. Domania, on the other hand, had a 57 percent accuracy rate.
But the people from MSN who conducted the comparative study say that Electronic Appraiser gives you the most value for your money. At $29.95, a full report will provide a map, a rundown of census data, and contact information of establishments and landmarks such as schools, churches and businesses.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit house image by kruszek from Fotolia.com
