How to Determine the Current Market Value of a House
Calculating the current market value of your home is more art than science. To be close to accurate, it must take into account numerous variables including the size, plan, condition, improvements, local market conditions, neighborhood amenities and many others. Simply researching what your neighbor sold his house for is not enough. The only real way to have any confidence in a market valuation of your home is to have it done by a competent real estate professional.
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Things You'll Need
- Licensed real estate appraiser
- Money for appraisal
- Local real estate agent or Realtor
Instructions
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Hire a licensed real estate appraiser to inspect your home, conduct a local market study and a neighborhood analysis. The inspection will assign monetary values to different aspects of your home. The market study gives insight to what several similar homes in the area have been sold for, and the neighborhood analysis adjusts the value of the home based upon how attractive the local environment is. The appraiser will then have the information needed to give you an estimate of what your home may be worth given these factors. The appraisal can range in price from $350 to $500 for most residential appraisals.
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Consult with a local real estate agent or Realtor and ask for professional insight into the real estate market, home prices, and what homes have actually sold for. A local agent will have a sense of the value of your type of home in the market. A Realtor or real estate agent will also know the direction of the market, if buyers or sellers have more influence, and will have an idea of what market trends are developing.
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Combine your information to produce the most accurate picture of your home's value. The appraisal is a reasonable value and will at times be higher or lower than the market value. The real estate agent will offer a professional opinion of what he thinks he can sell the home for on the open market (this estimate is usually accurate for the current 45 to 90 days). The two values together should indicate the most reasonable and precise home valuation possible.
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Tips & Warnings
You can use online sites like Remax.com and Zillow.com to see what local homes are being listed for. However, this information should only be used to gauge a relative value of your home.
Understand that the market value of your home is a unique value that can only be determined by professional evaluation and market study. While you can get an idea using online tools, only a real estate professional can give you an accurate value.
