To determine how much you want to list your house for when putting it on the market, you should first find out how much your home is worth in the present day marketplace.

Market value is the value according to all the home buyers out there. Unfortunately, it doesn’t much matter what you spent on the home originally or how much you’ve poured into the home in renovations. The value is completely dependent on what the market says its worth at the time you choose to sell. This means other factors such as how neighboring houses are selling, what they are selling for and the like contribute to the overall value.

To estimate the market value of your home, you’ll want to find at least 3 similar homes nearby that have sold within the last 6-12 months. This information is available in county records, or you can ask a real estate agent with access to the multiple listing service (MLS). In your research, you’ll want to obtain the sales prices, terms of sale, description of the properties and other information.

Then with each house, write down the sale price and then review the description to pinpoint all of the things the house did not have that your house does and add to sale price. You’ll also need to subtract the value of those items that your house does not have, but the other house did. After doing this with all 3 houses, you can take the average of the three prices and obtain the indicated value of your home, and what you should sell your house for.

Another option is to recruit a professional house appraiser to come out, inspect your home and offer you the true total worth for the present market. You can always find a professional appraiser in the yellow pages or in an online search of your area. You could also contact your credit union or financial institution for a referral to a qualified appraiser they might use.

Once you know what your home is truly worth, you can then decide on what to list it for, keeping in mind you don’t want to go too far over the valued price that potential buyers won’t even look at your home, but pricing at a figure that still leaves you room for effective negotiation. If you are using a real estate agent to help you sell your home, your agent can recommend a good asking price based on the appraised value of your home.

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