To ensure you set a good price on your home when it comes time to sell, you can do a number of things. One that is so important is having the home appraised by a professional. Although this might cost you between $175 and $350, it is well worth the investment. With the appraisal, you can determine any problems ahead of time so you can fix them prior to putting the house on the market.
Remember, real estate agents are not professional real estate appraisers. Therefore, you want to hire an appraiser, someone that does this for a living and is licensed. You can find professional appraisers in the phone book or you could ask your real estate agent for recommendations. By having an appraisal performed before you price your home, you will have a much better idea of what you can and cannot get out of the home.
Keep in mind that you could visit the local courthouse or property appraiser’s office to find the information on your home but the problem here is that the report would not show any changes. In other words, you would be able to find the average value of the home but the appraiser would climb up into the attic looking for broken rafters that would need to be fixed. Obviously, something like this or a bad roof, leaking basement, cracked driveway, and so on would all have an impact on the price.
Therefore, we recommend you invest in the appraisal. For one thing, a professional appraisal done by a state-certified property appraiser will be required if your eventual buyer intends to finance the purchase with a mortgage. For this reason, it gives you a far more accurate idea of the maximum amount lenders will be willing to finance for the buyer.
The appraiser will first inspect your property from foundation to attic and note its features, including quality of construction and amenities. Additionally, the appraiser will perform a market analysis, comparing your property to similar properties that have sold recently in your area. In fact, the appraiser may even call real estate agents in your area to determine market conditions in your neighborhood.
When the appraisal is done, a report would be written up and offered to you. With this, you would know the actual appraised value of the home. Remember, the appraisal has nothing to do with the house for sale down the road but your property. When looking at a seller’s market, it is important to add between 10% and 15% onto the appraised value of a home whereas for a buyer’s market, you would add between 2% and 3%.