The strange experience of having your home professionally appraised can be jarring to some people, but it is of incredible importance when you are considering placing your home on the market.
So what is a home appraisal?
A home appraisal helps determine the fair price of your property with the help of a professional property appraiser or of a real estate agent. If you are re-mortgaging a property, banks will require a professional property evaluation or home appraisal to place a monetary valuation on the property. This should not be confused with a home inspection, which outlines the conditions of the property and what may need to be repaired, but does not address home value.
How can a home appraisal help the sale of my property?
Pricing your home is by far one of the trickiest aspects of selling a home. Price too low and buyers will assume there’s something wrong with the home and you are trying to dump it. Price too high and you may completely shut out your target group and end up selling the home for significantly less.
You may also run into real estate agents that offer you vastly different price options for selling your home. Keep in mind that a real estate agent does not provide and unbiased assessment of your home. While they can provide suggestions, a real estate agent can only provide a casual estimate of a home and ultimately, they are attempting to gain your listing to profit their business.
By having the right price when listing your home, you will be able to attract more buyers. This is because pricing your home over market value in the hopes that someone will be willing to pay the higher price will mean that buyers don’t even see the option of your home. Depending on your location and market, buyers may be looking for homes only within a certain price range. If you choose to mark up your home from $299,000 to $310,000, for example, buyers looking for homes under $300,000 will not see your home at all, even if you were ultimately willing to accept $300,000 for the home.
The right price means more confident buyers
It’s a strange thing about selling a home, but for most buyers they are expecting the seller to tell them what they’re home is worth. If you offer your home for a fair price that is similar to comparable homes in the neighborhood, buyers will feel better about the transaction. They may reason that, since you’ve done your homework about the price, you will most likely have done it about the home itself.
Listen to your appraisal
Ultimately, you will be better off listening to the advice of a professional and getting the right price for your home the first time around. If you price too high and have no bites, you will be forced to go lower on your price and may end up selling for much less than you expected, if only to sell at all.