What is my house worth?

One of the main questions people ask is: I am getting ready to sell!!! I want to sell my house, but what is my house worth?

That is a legitimate question and is not quite easy to answer but here are some tips to get closer to the real value of what the house worth!

• Get the market comparables (Comps). The value of the house or any other item is usually determined by what other people are willing to pay for it. So taking a look at your neighborhood and comparing houses that have been sold recently is a great idea to start.
• Compare prices of recently sold houses, not what homes are listed for and also not the ones that are sale pending, because the real data is in past sales, not what people want to get for their homes when they list them. Of course people always want to sell their house for more and try to get highest price possible, but that doesn’t mean it will sell for that much. so focus on sold homes only.
• get the radius of sold homes, try to go into a neighborhood as close as possible. if the property is in certain development community with all homes built 5 years ago, you don’t want to compare those to the neighborhood outside that development that maybe houses that were built 50 years ago. location matters a lot. neighborhoods maybe similar but they are not same and that may influence price as well.
• bedrooms and bathrooms matter, but not as much as an actual square footage of the living space inside the house. of course number of bedrooms and bathrooms matters, but square footage matters more, because if a person wants they can always knock down some walls or put up new ones to create their own design and a number of bedrooms they desire! it would be a lot bigger project to try to add square footage to the house after it has been built already! So square footage is more important, yet bedrooms and bathrooms in many cases will also play a big role in comparing houses when you’re trying to find out what is my house worth!
• other factors that can give you clues is type of home. two story home is not the same as a ranch style house and should be compared appropriately with similar style houses.
• Also things like garage and lots size is important to pay attention to as well.
• all in all these are pretty much the basic most important criteria when trying to assess what the house is worth. But only roughly!
• if you want a detailed and more precise way of getting your house valued. you can hire an appraiser service. these people will come out and do an in depth analysis of every little detail that your house has and how it compares to the houses that were sold recently. this service is not that expensive and probably runs a few hundred bucks, probably depending on how in depth you want it to be.
• however today with all data available on the internet with sites like zillow.com, redfin.com, realtor.com, etc. it is pretty easy to just hop on and get a general idea of what comparable sales and even look inside the homes, since most of them have lots of pictures attached to them on these websites!
• so put in a little bit of work online and then for even better understanding you can make a list of houses that were sold in area and drive to them to see with your own eyes of how they compare to the house you are trying to appraise and get even better idea if your house is similar to compare it with or not so much.
• so hopefully this is quick post answers your question of what is my house worth? if you do those things you can get a rough idea within 15-20 minutes. But at the end of the day, everything that is bought or sold is negotiable. it depends on many different factors like buyers or sellers market, state of economy, or perhaps a new arena or a shopping mall built in the area. all those things can influence and sway prices one way or the other! so do your due diligence and try to gather as much information as possible before you make your final decision!
• and if you’re looking to sell your house fast and need help, feel free to call us for a free consultation at 818-668-5333 or email us at info@sellyourhousecali.com. we buy houses and close fast so you can get on with your life and start your new chapter!