With the blooming of Spring, the housing market is about to be back in full swing. Whether you’re looking to downsize, need room to grow, or you’re ready to find your dream home, now could be the best time to sell your house.
As you determine the selling price for your house, one of the most important things to figure out is how much your home is actually worth. There are a few ways to go about answering that question, and the best answer may be determined by how serious you are about selling your home.
Ways to find out the value of your home:
- Ask a Real Estate Agent - This is our recommendation, as well as the more typical route to determining your home’s worth. A good agent will have a professional’s pulse on the market your home is in, and recent sale value of comparable homes. With a walk-through of your home and a couple of data points they should be able to give you a fairly close estimate. Again, depending on the market, your home could sell for above its appraised value or below, but working with a good agent will mean your list price vs. sale price won’t be too far off the mark.
- Get an Appraisal - While this is likely the most costly option, it can be helpful. Typically, a buyer pays for the appraisal during the home buying process, but if you should choose to purchase one yourself, it will give you the clearest picture of the value a bank will place on your home before you determine your selling price.
- Online Searching - While not the most accurate way of determining your home’s value, it is a way to give you a reasonable ball park figure to consider. This is an acceptable option when you are just beginning to think about selling your home.
Increasing Your Home’s Value
You’ve finally figured out what your home is worth! Now, what? Well, if it’s worth what you had hoped or more, then you’re pretty much set. List it and good luck selling! However, if the value isn’t what you had expected, there are ways to increase your home’s value – like home improvement projects. Such projects can involve a range from high levels of effort and investment, like a new roof or siding, to low levels of effort and investment, like some quick curb appeal(Opens in a new window). This may come as a surprise, but some of the smaller projects can go a long way to increasing your home’s value. Your real estate agent will be a good sounding board of what projects would make your home comparable to others on the market. And by having your house more move-in ready with completion of these upgrades, the value of your home can go up, typically more than the amount put in for the project.
Guardian’s Sellers Max Advantage
One of the keys to successfully buying or selling a home is making sure both buyer and seller are confident in each other. One way you can instill confidence in your potential buyers is to take advantage of our Sellers Max Advantage program. This program can help you sell your home quicker by offering a 1%* lender credit for Conventional or Government loans, or up to $3,000* credit for Jumbo loans toward your buyer’s closing costs. But your listing agent and Guardian Mortgage Loan Originator will need to ensure your property is listed on the Sellers Max Advantage Agreement before entering any contract with a potential buyer.
Whether you work with an agent or get an appraisal, we can’t advise selling your home without having a clear idea about its worth and the state of the current market you’re in. Selling your home is a big decision. And the more knowledge you have about your home’s worth, the more comfortable you can be in making the choice to sell. But once you’ve made the decision to sell, we always wish you the best! And if you ever have questions or want to learn more about our Sellers Max Advantage program, a Guardian Mortgage Loan Originator is always ready to take your call.
*Toward closing cost, rate reduction, and/or prepaids. Cannot be used for down payment. Listing Incentive Agreement must be dated, signed, and returned prior to signing contract. Program cannot be used in conjunction with the Heroes Program or combined with any other Affinity incentives. Purchase loans for primary residence only. Loans subject to credit review and approval. This is a temporary offer and the lender credit is not tied to the interest rate. Limitations apply to the credit amount based on loan amount. Consult your Guardian Mortgage loan originator for details. Certain terms and restrictions apply. Program available only to qualified borrowers. Program subject to change without notice. Underwriting terms and conditions apply. Loan subject to credit review and approval.