How Much Is My House Worth?
From that renovated bathroom to the roof that needs replacing, from the location of your house to the market itself, how do you figure out the value of your home? RealtyHive has the answers—read on to see how much your house is worth.
RealQuick: Do I only need to know my home’s value if I’m about to sell?
An in-depth valuation (such as a home appraisal) isn’t necessary if you plan on staying in your home for awhile. However, you should keep track of all home improvement projects and stay up-to-date on market trends. Doing so will make it easier to create a listing price for when you do decide to sell.
Home Value Factors
There are countless variables that determine the price of your home. Take a look at this list to see some of the biggest factors:
- Your house’s current condition
- The size of your home/property
- Renovations or improvements from the time you bought to now
- Unique or valuable characteristics (ex. hardwood floors)
- Fixes that need to happen
- Your location, and trends in that location
- The housing market (both presently and what the future might hold)
It’s OK if you can’t put a price on all of these factors right now! Even just considering them is a good starting point to figuring out your home’s worth.
Finding Your Price Tag
Whereas losing a few bucks on selling a used book at a garage sale isn’t a huge deal, the wrong price on your house can cost you tens of thousands. Luckily, there are a number of ways you can gauge a good estimate. Our real estate home auction services rank each of these methods out of five stars:
Online Real Estate Databases
Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️
Sites like Zillow may seem like a good reference point for configuring house prices in your area. The truth is they are notorious for over or undervaluing properties. It will be hard to find a sweet spot for determining your home’s worth if you use Zillow as a source of comparison.
Tax Appraisals
Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️
Tax appraisals look at a property’s value according to its location, usually within the county. The average prices of other homes in the area are used to evaluate your home’s price. But these averages leave out lots of details and can even be years apart—tax appraisals are problematic for finding a home’s value and don’t reflect the true market.
Home Appraisals
Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Home appraisals happen when a lender is determining the price for a mortgage loan. They’re conducted by licensed and certified professionals and are about as accurate as you can get for determining the physical cost of your home. One downside is if you get an appraisal after listing your home for sale and your house is worth more than what you priced it for, an appraiser often won’t assign a higher value. Home appraisals also have a hard time establishing real market value and how much others are willing to pay for a home. As a result, home appraisals might be best used after you’ve thoroughly calculated the value of your home.
Comparable Sales (Comps)
Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Running comps is probably your best bet for finding how much your home is worth—in fact, it’s what the professionals (real estate agents) do. If going the FSBO route, you can find comps for homes similar to yours by checking recent sales from online databases and MLS. You can also find county tax records online, but it’s usually more time-consuming.
Real Estate Agent
Overall Rating: Depends
The benefit of working with an agent is you’re more likely to get an accurate and overall higher selling price—but that benefit isn’t free. Even if your house sells for an ideal price, you’ll lose thousands paying out an agent’s commission (which averages 6% of your sale). But if you’re fine with sacrificing cost for convenience, then working with an agent is a good choice.
Time-Limited Events
Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
At RealtyHive, we offer equity checks that help find a good price for your property. Selling with a time-limited event is great for hitting that “just right” price. The other benefits of a home auction with RealtyHive include a) if your house doesn’t sell, you don’t pay for marketing and b) if you’re not happy with the price your home is going for, you don’t have to sell.
But before all that, work with RealtyHive to get an equity check! Find your home’s value today with RH.