What Will My Home Appraise For? Here’s How to Check Your Home’s Value
Here are some common reasons you might want to know your home’s value:
Determining an asking price
How much you could get for your home will likely impact your decision to sell. If you’ve been on the fence about selling, but the appraisal comes back and you realize you’ll make a large profit, it could help you get off the sidelines and enter the market.
It will also help guide your asking price and target resale value. The asking price sets your budget to purchase a new house. Any gains from your sale, combined with savings, help determine your home shopping budget for the next house. With a $50,000 gain on the sale in your pocket, for example, that larger home with a swimming pool or three-car garage could now be within your reach.
The asking price can also determine how quickly your home sells.
“A property priced too low will sell too fast, [but] you will leave money on the table,” Tom Cullen, a licensed real estate appraiser certified by the National Appraisal Institute with over 30 years of experience, shares.
“A property priced too high will sit for an extended period of time with little to no activity, and you may miss your window of opportunity to sell.”
Providing insight on whether to make repairs or updates
Knowing your home’s value could impact remodeling decisions. If your home is already at the top of the market for your area, you might not want to put more money into it. Or, if painting the interior would only cost $5,000 but could increase your home’s value by $15,000, you might decide to have this or other repairs done before listing for sale.
In his market, Swartz says, “People have been taking the time to upgrade their house before they sell it because they can see the value in the comps.”
Comps, also called comparables, are recently sold homes in your market that are similar to your home in size, condition, location, and features. By looking at what similar homes are selling for (and which features are helping them command higher prices), homeowners can get a better sense of which upgrades may actually add value.
