Reader question: “Are there any websites I can use to find out what a home is worth online? I know real estate agents typically provide this kind of information. But we are not working with an agent yet (and we might not). We want to get a sense of what we can afford in the area, before we start house hunting and all of that other stuff. Where can we go online to figure out how much a particular house is worth?”
Well, there actually aren’t that many websites that will tell you what a particular home is worth, unless it is actually listed for sale. But even then, you are only getting the seller’s asking price, which may be miles away from the true market value of the property.
Having the Home Appraised
You can find out what a house is worth by having it professionally appraised, but that doesn’t help you at this stage of the game. My advice is to start looking at recent sales within the area where you want to buy a home. Depending on the type of real estate market you are in, there could be a big difference between the average list price and the average sale price for homes in the area. For instance, houses might be selling for 10% to 15% below list price, on average, within your market. So when you are researching this online, you should be focusing on the actual selling prices of homes.
Find Out What Its Worth Online
So, how do you find out what a home is worth online? One thing you can do is visit a website like Realtor.com, Zillow.com or Trulia.com. All of these websites offer listing and sales data for different markets. So you could go online to any or all of these sites to look at recent home sales, and to find out what a particular house might be worth.
So let’s say you’re looking at a 3-bedroom, single-story home with 1,800 square feet. That’s your target house. Now you want to go online and find out what that home might be worth in the current market. You can visit any of the websites mentioned above and look for recent sales prices for the area, with an eye out for similar properties. If you can find a few homes that sold recently that have the same parameters (3-bedroom, single-story with 1,800 sq. ft.), you have some pretty good comparable sales data. Now you can find out what the target home might be worth online.
The Comps Will Tell You What It’s Worth
Remember, if a home is listed for sale at a certain price, it doesn’t mean it’s actually worth that amount in the current market. Sometimes, sellers are very realistic when they set their asking prices. Other times, they have their heads in the clouds. So the initial listing price may or may not be the true market value of the home. You want to find out what the home is worth online, by using some of the techniques mentioned above. Try to find out what similar homes have sold for recently, in the same geographical area (within the same neighborhood or subdivision, if possible). These are your comparable properties or “comps.”
If the target home is different in some way from the comps, you have to adjust up or down with the price. For example, if it’s similar to most of the comps but has an extra bedroom, you would need to adjust upward from the average of those comparable properties. You have to add or subtract value based on the features and condition of the property in question. Does that make sense?
All of this will be easier when you start working with a real estate agent, especially if you work with an experienced agent who knows the market. He or she can tell you what a particular house is worth by going online, and also by using their own proprietary tools and methods. Real estate agents are trained in this sort of analysis. But you can do some of it yourself just by poking around on Realtor.com and similar property listing websites.
So that’s an overview of how you can find out what a home is worth online. If you have any follow-up questions about this topic, just use the contact form like you did the first time. Good luck.