How Much is Your House Worth? Yesterday Zillow announced the launch of their real estate information site, offering free valuations on more than 60 million homes across the United States. You can see the estimated value of your house, your neighbor's house, or just about any other home in the country -- whether it's for sale or not. That's cool. Just enter an address, and you can view not only the valuation, but all of the info below for every home in the neighborhood: Number of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, lot size, stories and year built. Historical value changes, charted over the past year, five years or ten years. All comparable home sales in an area. Satellite, aerial and parcel views (if available)Best of all, Zillow.com is free, and does not require you to register, subscribe, login or enter any personal information. That's VERY cool. Zillow CEO Rich Barton sums up his philosophy like this: "We believe you shouldn't need a computer science degree or a real estate license to find out what a home is worth. That's why we created Zestimate values, providing free and instant valuations for millions of homes in America." For the true information addicts, Zillow's estimated values are updated daily, so you can track the value of your investment. This gives both buyers and sellers an real-time view of the local housing market. How Will Remodeling Affect Your House Value? The Zestimator tool allows you to play "What If?" scenarios, to estimate the impact of adding a room, finishing the basement, or remodeling the kitchen. Plug in your changes, and Zillow re-calculates the new value for your home based on local remodel and depreciation data. There are many factors that Zillow may not be able to take into consideration when estimating the value of a home, so it's still a good idea to hire a professional appraiser to evaluate a property, if you're serious about buying or selling. But do try Zillow to get an estimate of the market value of your home, a neighbor's home, or a home in a neighborhood where you might be considering a purchase. It's also a great tool if you're curious about what a neighbor's house sold for. Reprinted from: http://www.askbobrankin.com/house_values.html |
