What Is My House Worth? Home Value Estimator

Table of Content

• Search Local Real Estate, Foreclosures, Condos, and Homes by State and City
• Should I get an appraisal before I list my home?
• Should I Get An Appraisal Of My House?
• Click home value and type in an address
• How Much Can I Sell My House For? The Number Every Homeowner and Seller Should Know
• Check Out Your Free Property Report For Local Insights

Our high-quality RealEstimate℠ data is sourced directly from multiple valuation providers independent from Realtor.com and used and trusted by the lending industry. Determine the cost of selling your home with our Net Proceeds calculator. Looking for a local real estate agent or thinking about selling your home for cash? With an off-market median error rate of 7.67%, Redfin values are slightly less accurate than Zillow (6.9%), although the accuracy varies widely by market.

And there are a variety of ways to do that, many of which are free and easily within reach online. Here’s how to find your Realtor.com home value, and why having an accurate estimate matters whether you want to sell your home or own it for the long haul. Buying or selling a home is a big deal and having three home valuation estimates can be a helpful part of a successful transaction.

Search Local Real Estate, Foreclosures, Condos, and Homes by State and City

When fewer houses are being bought and sold, estimators have less sales data to rely on. Hot housing markets can sometimes make estimates more accurate, however, simply because there tend to be a lot of sales. More recent sales data to pull from usually means smaller margins of error.

For example, Zillow Zestimates has its largest margin of error for active listings in Seattle and San Francisco — two of the hottest real estate markets in the country. To get a far more accurate estimate of your home’s value, you need to consult a real estate agent and get a free CMA. Most paid home value estimators are marketed toward real estate professionals, such as brokers and investors. If you are considering buying a new investment property, then a paid estimator may provide some value.

Should I get an appraisal before I list my home?

Chase Bank’s home value estimator ranks as one of the worst we reviewed. Like PennyMac and other estimators, it frequently uses outdated comparable sales to estimate a home’s value. However, PennyMac is another home value website frequently using outdated comparable sales to determine a home’s estimated value. On our test property, seven out of 10 of its comparables sold more than seven months ago. PennyMac is one of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders, servicing more than $500 billion in loans in 2021. Its home value estimator is fast, free, and easy to use, and we found its property information accurate compared to our home’s tax records.

For example, two properties may appear to be the same to an algorithm, but if one has a renovated kitchen, that can add $20,000 extra to the list price. We found its estimates comparable to other free options, including Zillow and Redfin. Unfortunately, we found that Bank of America often uses outdated comparable sales to determine a home’s value.

Should I Get An Appraisal Of My House?

They’re looking to land you a sale price that is both relatively high and likely to attract offers from buyers. Home value estimators are primarily for sellers, but if you’re a buyer, you might get some use out of them as well. For example, you may want to compare the list price of a home with what a home value estimator says it’s worth. Unlike an online estimator which relies on an algorithm, a CMA is curated to your specific property. That matters because no two houses are exactly the same, so you need a person who is trained in home valuations to see your house in person to determine how much it is worth. Just as a hot housing market can wreak havoc with an estimator’s algorithm, so can a slow one where there are likely to be fewer sales, like in a rural market.

Talk to a Redfin Agent who specializes in your area for a free consultation. Found something you love but want to make it even more uniquely you? Save this search to get email alerts when listings hit the market. This guide draws on hundreds of hours of research done by Michael and the team at Real Estate Witch. We tested dozens of home value estimators using test properties across the country to find the ones that provide the best value for you — and to eliminate those that didn’t make the cut.

Average Time On Market

Redfin has complete and direct access to multiple listing services , the databases that real estate agents use to list properties. We use MLS data on recently sold homes in your area to calculate your property's current market value. According to an independent study of on-market homes, the Redfin Estimate is the most accurate among leading automated home-value tools. We provide the most accurate value of a home for sale—more than twice as likely to be within 3% of the home's selling price as other top online home-value estimators. Like other estimates, this is not a formal appraisal or substitute for the in-person expertise of a real estate agent or professional appraiser.

Unfortunately, no home value estimator publicizes how far back they go when looking for comparable properties, so there’s no way to know for sure which estimator works best in a hot market. As you can see, the difference in estimates was huge — over $53,000 for our city property! That just goes to show that online home value estimates are not reliable for pricing your home properly. A common issue with estimator tools is that their assessments are based on how much “similar” properties have sold for near you.

Like other popular home value websites, Realtor’s home values do not factor in any recent upgrades or renovations unless the information is updated in the property’s tax records. Providing home values from multiple sources may help you get a more accurate, complete view of a home’s potential value. Realtor.com determined that our test property has a fair market value of $203,204 after averaging its three home value estimates from Collateral Analytics, CoreLogic, and Quantarium. The homeowner dashboard also has information on your estimated home equity and potential home sale proceeds, should you decide to sell.

Indeed, it’s hard to boil down years or decades of memories in a home to a number. It’s also hard to accept that your home is worth less than what you paid for it, or that you can’t just tack on the full dollar amount of the renovations you’ve made. On average, renovations will reap you only a 64% return on investment, although that varies based on the type of upgrades you’ve made.

This tends to be a more common problem in older neighborhoods and city centers. Because fewer homes sell, a home value estimator may also have to rely on older sales data, which again will cause the estimator to be less accurate. However, there’s no point in paying for an estimate if you need to sell your home.

Granted, that strategy could work in a hot seller’s market, but underpricing your home frequently leads buyers to assume that your home is worth only its list price, says Dossman. Real estate agents specialize in answering the question “what is my home worth? ” for their clients, which they do by running a comparative market analysis. This process involves finding similar properties (“comps”) that sold within the past 90 days. Figuring out how much your home is worth is important if you hope to get a good price when you sell. Realtor.com® has a variety of tools and advice to help you figure out how much your house is worth.