If you have ever wondered how much your home is worth and are thinking of either down-sizing or up-sizing, you can easily find a proper budget for yourself with a property value estimator. This way you will know what you can look for if you decide to sell your home and start somewhere new.
A property value estimator will present you, within seconds, with a free estimate of what your is worth based on data such as square footage and recent home sales in the area. These free valuations will help you get a general idea of what your home is worth in today’s market, but they are just a ballpark figure. You do want the expertise of a real estate agent who has the access to a number of databases of information regarding recent sales to help you hone in on the right listing price.
A realtor can come and assess your home and in doing this they will search for other homes in your area that are comparable to your own in square footage as well as number of bedrooms and bathrooms and see how much they sold for. This is called a Comparative Market Analysis, or a CMA, which is a very good starting point to know what price to list your home at in today’s market.
A realtor will also help you remain objective because you will believe that your home is worth top-dollar because of the personal attachment. It is hard to boil-down decades or years of memories to one price and it is also hard to accept that a home is possibly worth less than what you paid for it or that your renovations weren’t as lucrative as you thought.
They will also help you pick the correct listing price, meaning even if your home’s market value is $203,000, they may have you list it as $200,000 because that is what buyers will search for when doing their online research. That price could generate more interest and possibly even a bidding war for your home.
It is important to listen to the real estate agent and know what your home is worth because if you decide to throw caution to the wind and go with your gut on the place where you hold all your precious memories, you could estimate your home’s value as too high and then it could sit on the market for too long. This is a problem because properties that go unsold for an extended period of time, usually over a month, often become stale and unsellable at that moment. Buyers will be suspicious of a home that is on the market for a while and believe that something is wrong with the home.
If that becomes the case, then you, the seller, may have to make a significant reduction in price and end up dropping the selling point way below market value just to nab a buyer. If you under-price your home, it could stir up interest and a bidding war, but it could also backfire and have buyers believe that your home is only worth its listing price.
So, all in all, your best bet is knowing your home’s worth and listing it close to its market value. Keep your property value estimator close and turn to your real estate agent to help you pinpoint the right price for you and your family.
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