5 Easy Ways to Find Your Home’s Value
Thinking of renovating the sun lounge and swapping the tiles for wooden floors, and you’re wondering how much would they cost you. Ping! Suddenly your thoughts move to another direction: how much is your home’s value after renovation? We’ll tell you. Finding your home’s value is not that difficult, and we’ll give you five easy ways to go about it.
Why Find the Worth of Your Home?
First off, why even bother to find the worth of your home when you’re just reviving the sun lounge. Well, it’s not just about the sun lounge, is it? The work of a homeowner doesn’t end with purchase of a house; the responsibility is continuous. Keeping a tab on your home’s value is just one of them. You’ll need to find your home’s value for the following reasons:
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- Net worth: It’s always handy to know how much you’re worth in terms of your income, asset valuation, and property under your name. Considering your home is the biggest valuation in the sum of the equation, it’s a good thing to know in advance. You’ll need to have that knowledge for insurance purposes, in case of life endangering accidents etc.
- Collateral: There is no guarantee when you might need to get the next loan, and if your house is on mortgage then you’ll have a slim chance of getting another one. Either go for hard money loan, or consider borrowing from private investors using your house value as a collateral.
- Property tax: Needless to say, Uncle Sam will always come after you once he detects you have something worth taxing. Property tax is one of the most important and biggest tax amounts that go out of the pocket of homeowners. If you know your home’s value you’ll be able to calculate your property tax.
- Sale value: If you need to sell your home for some reason at some point in time, you’ll need to know that your home is worth the sale for the amount you’re aiming to get.
So, now that you’ve got the reasons, let’s jump onto the ways to find your Burbank home’s value.
Online Home Value Calculator
You can’t blame us; we all breathe and live in the digital world. Of course we’ll refer you to online home value calculators. Technologies have revolutionized even the process of property valuation. From Zestimator by Zillow to Trulia, Redfin, and Realtor.com you’ll get a host of online home value calculators to choose from. They’ll help find how much your home is worth as well as how much tax you need to pay for your property. Some are just online companies providing convenient property listing tools for their users. Others are truly real estate technology tools designed for realtors. Go on, try them!
Multiple Listing Service
Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is a very well known database among real estate brokers to find property listing with their true value. MLS is a combined database of all local or national property listing databases. The properties listed here are valued by professional real estate agents across the country, and this is a quick way for them to post offers, appraise property value and establish compensation for selling or buying properties. So, when you use this service you’ll get to know EXACTLY how much your home is worth. The only drawback is it’s restricted to real estate broker membership. If you know one, you can ask him/her to log on to MLS.
Home Sold Nearby
Why go to such lengths when you can snoop around your neighborhood, eh? If you’re the talkative type, great at making small talk, and have a network of neighbors then this will be a breeze for you. Just pop over to Susan’s (insert your neighbor’s name), and log on to your local neighborhood grapevine to find the latest news – who’s the newcomer, who’s bought a home, who’s sold a property etc. The price at which your neighbor’s house got sold, will be your own home’s value, give or take. But if you’re not the chatty type, then the next point might be for you.
Local Real Estate Agent
Who better to know about your home’s worth than your trusted real estate agent? Just call them or pay them a visit, and let them know you’re interested in knowing your home’s value. They might ask you a couple of questions like the neighborhood, area, condition, or how the house came into your possession etc. They’ll give you a general estimate, and for specific home appraisal, they might ask you to fill out a form with all the details. Give all the information you know, and they’ll tell the value of your home in no time.
Mortgage Company or Bank
Okay, so this is not that easy but it is a way that you could use in case you failed all the others. Your local mortgage company or bank is your best bet in finding out the exact value of your house. They’ll even have your credit history, loans and all other details that you might have been able to hide so far. The great news is, they’ll be able to put a value to your home without any margin of error. Isn’t that what you want?
So there you have it – easy peasy ways to find your home’s value for whatever purpose.Over to you! Let us know what other ways you have tried, failed or succeeded. We’re all ears!
