How to Calculate the Value of a House for Free

Whether you are looking to buy a house and want to make sure you are getting a good deal, or need to sell your home and want to fairly assess its value, it's useful to know the easiest way to do this. You don't have to pay a real estate company to research the value for you, as there are a number of ways you can do this yourself, from a trip to the courthouse to a scan through a real estate book.

Instructions

1. Go to the tax assessor's office. Each home is valued at a certain amount by the county for real estate tax purposes. You can usually go to your county courthouse to look up the assessed value of properties.

2. Look at comparable houses. This is how many real estate agents determine how much a house is worth. They find sales prices for similar homes in the area (in such categories as square footage, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, age of the home) to determine the fair market value for the home to be put on the market. You can do this too by looking through local real estate guides or newspaper classifieds to see how much people are trying to sell comparable homes for.

3. Add about 3 percent inflation value to a home if there are no recent comparables, as home values tend to rise over time with inflation. Take the most recent comparable and multiply by 1.03.

4. Subtract 5 to 8 percent if you are calculating your home's value for sale. This will account for general fix-up costs that are likely to be required before closing the deal, as well as selling costs, such as your real estate agent's commission. This means that whatever value you believe the home holds, you can expect to get 92 to 95 percent of this price after the sale.

5. Remember that when buying a home, it is common to offer 90 to 95 percent of the estimated property value as a starting point. You can hope that the seller will accept your offer, or negotiate with them if the offer is too low.