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In order to find out how much your home is worth there are a
few things you can do. The first and most obvious thing you
can do is obtain an appraisal. During a real estate purchase
this is usually paid for by the buyer and performed during the
escrow period. Prior to that point the seller might have an
older appraisal on hand that they might have used for the initial
purchase of the home or for a refinance. In any event, that
report is probably old news unless it has been done within the
last six months. Even then, it could still be old news. An experienced
Realtor knows this and therefore has do what is called a CMA
to assist the client in deciding what price they are going to
list their house at. A CMA stands for Comparative Market Analysis
and is an approximate estimate of your homes value based on
other comparable homes that have sold in your area in the recent
months. Another tool that is also available to Realtors is what
is called a property profile which is provided by the local
title company. In the property profile all of the relevant information
such as bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, lot size, and amenities
are addressed. There is usually also a list of comps on the
property profile as well. Using all of the information in the
property profile and the CMA information off of the MLS (Multiple
Listing Service), a Realtor can get a pretty good idea of what
your homes value might be at the time of the listing. Of course
this is only a tool that is available to you and ultimately
you decide how much you are going to list your house for when
you sell it. Lastly, in recent days, there has been a new website
that has attempted to take all of these steps discussed above
and combine them all into one click for a quick estimate on
your homes’ value. It is called: www.zillow.com and while it
is interesting and informative it should be noted that the most
current comps are not always listed and therefore it can not
be considered completely reliable. In the end, only an experienced
Realtor can provide you with the most updated information.
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