For Sale By Owner - 7 Ways to Determine Market Value
Pricing your home correctly is the #1, must be done first,
priority item in the path of selling your home. If your home is
not priced at true market value, you lose. You lose money, you
lose excess time on the market, and you may also lose the
opportunity to sell your home.
1. Appraiser - Hire a Real Estate Appraiser, you can find
a local professional from the website of The Appraisal
Institute. It is an international membership association of
professional real estate appraisers, with more than 18,000
members and 99 chapters throughout the United States, Canada and
abroad. Its mission is to support and advance its members as the
choice for real estate solutions and uphold professional
credentials, standards of professional practice and ethics
consistent with the public good.
2. Bank of America - Has an online service available for
FREE on their webpage. Check it out easy to use enter your
address and zip code press enter and there are the numbers.
http://realestatecenter.bankofamerica.com/RePortal/Homepage.aspx
3. Real Estate Agents - Only the cutting edge internet
savvy Realtors have an on line FREE Over-The-Net home evaluation
service. Some try to send you off to pay services, if your going
to pay anyone it should be an Appraiser.
4. Legal Business Newspaper - Every city and county has a
Legal Business Newspaper that it uses for all public legal
announcements. They also publish foreclosures, divorces,
Judgments and Property Transfers. Larger papers have on-line
services and keep archives.
5. Tax Records - City and County Tax records show all
property ownership and transfers. They show when a property was
sold and for how much. It also shows the recent appraisal
information used to compute the tax. Online some have been
updated to show photos of the property.
6. Multiple Listing Service - You can directly access the
MLS to see at what prices homes are listed. This does not give
you true market value but gives you a reference to where it may
be going, up, flat, down.
7. Realtor.com - the premier real estate web site more
people by far use Realtor.com to get information on residential
real estate. It has the same information as the MLS but usually
has more photos and is usually easier to navigate.
I have left off the most obvious which is to have a real estate
agent come out and prepare a CMA (comparable market analysis),
don't believe that all real estate agents are equal. Do this
only if you are not sure if you will actually try to sell on
your own. It's kind of slimy to have someone do work for you,
with you knowing your not going to work with them.