As a homeowner, whether you plan to stay in your current home for many years to come or are thinking about moving on to another home shortly, one of the most important things to understand is what your home is worth. Your home’s value and worth can make a significant difference in your life. The value impacts the annual taxes on your home, the costs to carry homeowner’s insurance and the price at which you can list and sell your home. So, what’s your home worth?
Factors that Impact Home Value
Before learning the value of your home, it’s important to know what factors will matter in that final number.
Location!
The site of the property will be a major deciding factor in its value. The site includes the city or town and the neighborhood. The community is analyzed based on various factors. Crime rates in an area, for example, play a significant role in determining the values of homes in the area. High crime rates, particularly violent crimes, will considerably lower home values while low crime rates raise the value.
Recently Sold Homes
The selling price of recently sold homes says a great deal about what people are willing to pay to move into the area. Sometimes, those selling prices are lower than expected. Other times they are higher than anticipated due to high competition over property.
Upgrades
The price you originally paid for your home will have a significant impact on its value. However, you may have made improvements to your home also. Upgrades to your home can increase its value. If you’ve replaced major appliances like your furnace, air conditioner, or water heater, these upgrades increase your home’s value. Adding or upgrading a bathroom, installing new flooring, and putting on a new roof can increase a home’s worth.
How to Determine Your Home’s Value
You may be able to fathom a decent guess about your home’s value. However there are more accurate ways of doing so. One of the methods that many homeowners and buyers use to determine the value is to use a home valuations calculator.
All you need to do is plug in a few facts about your home including the address, square footage, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and the calculator will generate an estimated home value for you. Such a tool can give you a rough estimate of the value of your home.
Alternatively, there are more detailed and accurate ways to determine what your home is worth. Working with a real estate agent, you can generate what is known as a comparative market report for your home.
This report takes the factual data about your house including the size, number of rooms, and upgrades as well as information about the neighborhood, the values and sale prices of other homes in the area nearby, and an analysis of the desirability of the area to determine the value of your home. The comparative marketing tool will be more detailed than the simple home valuation tool and will analyze additional factors that significantly impact selling prices for homes.
What’s Your Home Worth?
Your real estate agent is the best source of information about the local community and real estate topics. Give the John & JP Stone Real Estate Team a call today at 559-349-2543 or 559-259-9927 to learn more about local areas, discuss selling a house, or tour available homes for sale.
