How to Determine the Asking Price for Your House

Knowing your home's value is an essential step to sell a house, but this step is not always that simple. You might think you know how much your house is worth, but you might be wrong. The best thing you can do before choosing an asking price is to ask your Realtor what they think. If you do not ask for the right price when listing your home, you can lose money on the deal or have trouble selling it. Here are some methods your Realtor will use to help you find the right price.

Use Online Tools

The Internet is full of tools you can use to find your home value. You can use one or more of these tools to see what these sites say about your home value. While this is a good starting point, most of these tools are not completely accurate. They might give you a ballpark figure that can help you see the approximate value, but they might not be the most precise tools when it comes to current home values.

Look at Comps

The second option is to look at comps. Realtors often refer to comps when talking about home values, and a comp is a comparable property. When agents recommend listing prices, they typically base the prices on current home sales. Suppose several houses in your neighborhood sold last month. These homes are probably similar to yours if they are in the same community, which means you can use them as comps.

Your Realtor can compare these homes to yours to see the differences. Your house might be bigger than these, which means it might be worth a little more than the houses that just sold. If your home is in better condition, it might also be worth more. Comparing your house to these is probably the best and cheapest way to find an accurate value.

Hire an Appraiser

If you complete the first two steps and still have questions about your home value, you might want to hire a local appraiser to tell you the current value. An appraiser also compares your home to comps when determining its value, but an appraiser knows how to do this more precisely. After all, appraisers do this job for a living. If you want to use this method, ask your Realtor for an appraiser to hire.

If you have questions about your home's value or other parts of selling a house, talk to a local Realtor.

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