When you are ready to sell your home, one of the first things you need to do is find out how much it is worth. This can be done by ordering a home valuation report from a professional property valuer.
A home valuation report will give you an accurate estimate of your home’s current market value, as well as provide you with a range of other useful information that can help you make the best decision when it comes to selling your property.
Here are some of the things you should know about home valuations:
1. A home valuation is not the same as an appraisal. An appraisal is conducted by a licensed appraiser and is used to determine the value of a home for lending purposes. A home valuation, on the other hand, is conducted by a professional property valuer and is designed to give you an accurate estimate of your home’s current market value.
2. Your home’s value is not set in stone. The value of your home can fluctuate depending on a number of factors, such as the current state of the housing market, recent sales in your area, and even the condition of your home.
3. A home valuation report will give you a good idea of what your home is worth, but it is not an offer to buy or sell your home. If you are looking to sell your home, you will need to negotiate a sales price with potential buyers.
4. Home valuations can be ordered for a variety of different reasons. In addition to helping you determine the value of your home for sale, a home valuation can also be, used for insurance purposes, tax implications, or estate planning.
If you are thinking about selling your home, ordering a home valuation report is a good first step.
A home valuation will give you an accurate estimate of your home’s current market value, as well as provide you with useful information that can help you make the best decisions when it comes to selling your property.
The Best Tips to Sell Your Home Quicker
Ensure a quick sale.
Selling your home quickly not only allows you to move on with your life, but it also means fewer days of keeping your home in pristine condition and leaving every time your agent brings prospective buyers for a tour.
Pick a selling strategy.
Before putting a for-sale sign in your yard, it’s important to pick the selling strategy that will work best for you. The for-sale-by-owner option may be best if you feel confident in your ability to market the home and negotiate, but it may not ensure the fastest sale or the highest possible price.Â
Hire an experienced real estate agent.
If you’re selling your home by placing it on the market, as opposed to selling to an iBuyer, finding the right real estate agent is a necessary step.
Clean Everything
Nothing turns off buyers like a dirty house Hire a company to deep clean if you can’t do it yourself.
Depersonalize your home.
Remove all of your family memorabilia and photographs. You want purchasers to think of the property as a potential home for their family, not yours.
Let the light in.
People love light and bright, and the best way to show off your house is to let the sunshine in. Open all the curtains, blinds, and shades, and turn the lights on in any dark room. If natural light is lacking in any room, strategically place lamps or light sources throughout to set the mood.
Remove excess furniture and clutter.
Nothing makes a home seem smaller than too much big furniture. Rent a self-storage container or a storage unit and remove as much furniture as you can.
Consider staging your home.
While you may have a fun sense of style, your furniture may make it hard for buyers to see the home as a blank slate. When that happens, it may be better to have the home staged with furniture that’s brought in.
Invest in a professional photographer.
According to the 2021 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers from the National Association of Realtors, 95 percent of recent buyers utilized the internet to look for houses. If prospective customers do not believe your property’s features are adequately highlighted in its pictures, they may reject it without even going on a tour or attending an open house.
Spruce up the exterior of your home.
You’ve heard it 100 times before, and it’s still true: Curb appeal matters. You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. A new or freshly painted front door, new house numbers, and a new mailbox can breathe life into your entryway.
Perfect the entryway.
Once you get buyers inside your home, they still need to be wowed. “I believe that a buyer makes a decision on a house within the first couple seconds that they walk in the door,” Hobrock says.
Repaint in neutral colors.
A new coat of paint will do wonders to freshen up your home, both inside and out. This is the time to paint over your daughter’s purple bedroom, nix the quirky turquoise bathroom, and cover up the red accent wall in your dining room.
Make necessary updates.
If your kitchen, bathrooms, or living room look dated, you may benefit from some minor work prior to putting your house on the market.
Be flexible with showings.
Buyers like to see homes on their schedule, which often means evenings and weekends.
Set the right price.
No seller wants to leave money on the table, but the strategy of setting an unrealistically high price with the idea that you can come down later doesn’t work in real estate.
Benefits of working with a real estate agent
Better Access to Homes
Real estate agents know the local market inside and out. Although most homes are listed online for buyers to explore, many sellers want to keep their sales rather private.
There are many reasons for this, including nosey neighbors, divorce, financial struggle, health, or just family and friends in general that they might not want to know that they are selling their house.
Negotiation
An experienced real estate agent can detect issues with a potential home that otherwise, may have gone unnoticed.
They will review a home evaluation in great detail while observing the house for themselves as well.
Paperwork, Paperwork, Paperwork
There’s no doubt about it, along with the sale of a home comes a copious amount of paperwork. Some of these documents can include the:
(Deed, Bill of sale, Affidavit of title, Seller’s affidavit, Transfer tax declarations, Written offer, Repairs)
When it’s all said and done, you’ll probably have an entire shelf dedicated to the purchase of your new home. With all this paperwork comes signatures, records, and multiple copies.
A real estate agent can help you track the paperwork, and most importantly, ensure that everything is signed and complete.
Save Money
An experienced real estate agent has been around the block once or twice.
This means that they will most often bring quite a bit of knowledge to the table when it comes to the value of certain neighborhoods and homes.
In fact, most experienced realtors can estimate the value of a home from the moment that they walk through the door.
Guidance and Support
As exciting as purchasing a home can be, it can also prove to be quite emotional and overwhelming as well.
A real estate agent can provide you with guidance and support through each step.
They will be at your side throughout each home viewing, helping you understand why the design of the home might work for you and your family, or why a home just isn’t worth investing in – due to costly repairs.
Finding the Right Homes
Is there something unique that you were looking for in your future home?
From customized pet bedrooms and backyard landscape designs, to open concept kitchens and elaborate vintage-style fireplaces, if there is something specific that you are looking for in a home, your real estate agent will know where to find it.
Avoid Closing Issues
In the final hours before the home is officially yours, you don’t want any bumps in the road. An experienced realtor can foresee any issues from miles away, helping you overcome obstacles or resolve them before it’s too late.
Some closing issues can include:
(Document errors, Mortgage delays, Last-minute requests, Unclear titles, Issues during the final walkthrough)
An experienced realtor can help you resolve these issues, and so much more. Especially when your real estate agent is part of a reputable, strategic, and knowledgeable team. Such as Woolcott Real Estate.
What Is the Value of my Home?
If your property value is based on what a buyer is willing to pay for it, all you have to do is find someone willing to pay as much as you think it’s worth, right?
Determining a home’s value is a bit more complicated. Keep in mind that buyers place no value on the good times you’ve spent there and might not consider your updated bathroom or in-ground swimming pool to be worth the same amount you paid for the upgrades.
And even if you find a buyer willing to pay $350,000 for your home, the value of your house isn’t necessarily $350,000. Ultimately, the financial backing in a deal determines the property’s value, and it’s most often a mortgage lender making the call.
The individual, group, or tool appraising the property may also influence the outcome of the appraisal since they all appraise properties differently for a variety of reasons. Here’s a look at common appraisal scenarios.
Lender Appraiser
In the case of a property sale, the appraisal often happens once the property has gone under contract.
The lender will hire an appraiser to complete a report on the property, getting all the details on the house and its history, as well as the details of similar real estate deals that have closed in the last six months or so.
Appraiser You’ve Hired
If you haven’t yet put your house on the market and are struggling to determine the price, hiring an appraiser can help you get a realistic estimate.
Online Home Value Estimator
Many real estate information sites offer more informal home appraisal tools that will give you a ballpark value for your home.
You may have previously taken a look at Zillow’s Zestimate or realtor.com’s My Home tool.
Tax Assessor
Your home’s value also determines annual property taxes.
In addition to examining the sale prices of similar houses that sold recently, a tax assessor looks at what the cost would be to build a similar house, whether you’ve done any recent improvements if you earn income from the property, and the cost of upkeep.
How to Do a Comparative Market Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide
A comparative market analysis (CMA) is a process real estate professionals use to determine the market value of a property by comparing it to similar properties that have recently sold, as well as to those currently listed for sale.
Conducting accurate, consistent CMAs isn’t easy.
Most agents aren’t taught this skill in their pre-license real estate classes, so many enter the business without this vital expertise.
In this article, we’ll walk through the entire process of creating bulletproof CMAs every time, and give you a free CMA presentation template to share your findings with clients.
Gather All the Data Available About the Subject
Property “Subject property” is CMA-speak for the property for which you’re determining the market value. Since the critical function of a CMA is comparison, we first need to learn everything about the subject property so we can find other comparable ones with which to compare it.
What does a valuation cost?
The cost approach is a real estate valuation method that estimates the price a buyer should pay for a piece of property is equal to the cost to build an equivalent building. In the cost approach, the property's value is equal to the cost of land, plus total costs of construction, less depreciation.
What are the 3 main valuation methods?
Three main types of valuation methods are commonly used for establishing the economic value of businesses: market, cost, and income; each method has advantages and drawbacks. In the following sections, we'll explain each of these valuation methods and the situations to which each is suited.
What is the fair market value of a house?
Fair market value (FMV) in real estate is the determined price that a property will sell for in an open market. The FMV is agreed upon between a willing buyer and seller, both of whom are reasonably knowledgeable about the property in question.