If you’re considering selling your home or are just curious about how it has appreciated over time, determining its market worth is a solid first step. In a fast-growing city like Charleston, there are many changes happening to neighborhoods every day—and these changes can have a big impact on how much you can expect to get for your home in a sale.
Factors like new construction, neighborhood revitalization, and household improvements can significantly raise the price of your home throughout the years, but these types of things can be difficult to determine the impact of without understanding the market thoroughly. Fortunately, we’re here to help! Read on to learn more about our top tips for getting an estimate of your home’s value.
Determining the Market Value of Your Charleston Home
Take Online Calculators With a Grain of Salt
If you head to Google and type in “what is my home worth,” you’ll certainly get a lot of results—but the accuracy of your valuation might be questionable. These online calculators utilize available data such as ownership history, tax assessments, and comparable properties to estimate the value of your home, but at their core, most of these calculators are simply for lead generation purposes. While they can be helpful to give you a very general ballpark figure, we recommend taking any results with a grain of salt and talking directly with a realtor familiar with your neighborhood to get a more accurate valuation.
Look Up Recent Sales in Your Neighborhood
Keeping a pulse on the real estate market in your area is a great way to determine what your own home may be worth if you decide to list it. Instead of examining the listing price, look at the final sale price of homes in your area—the closer to your exact neighborhood, the better! We will be happy to pull this data in a concise report for you!
Get An Official Appraisal
While buyers seeking mortgage approval are required to get an appraisal through their lending company, homeowners can hire an appraiser to evaluate their home’s worth at any time. This is commonly done if you have made significant improvements to the home and are looking to refinance your mortgage, but it can also be done out of curiosity as well! A home appraiser will take the local market, your home’s specifics, and comparable properties in the area in account to provide you with the most accurate figure for your home’s value. While this is a service you’ll have to pay for out of pocket, it can be a huge perk for potential buyers if you do decide to sell, as you can show documentation that your asking price is fair.
If you’d like more information regarding determining the value of your home, we’re here to be a resource for you! Contact us today to learn more about our process and how we can help.
