What is the Value of Your Home

Finding the value of your home in this market is not an easy thing to do. If you use a website like zillow.com or REALTOR^®.com and look up the comparable properties, you find they are very misleading. Why? These sites use information from the county assessor’s sold properties. That sounds like a good thing to use, but it's not, given our current market conditions. The county assessor reports all the properties that change hands and their sales price, which includes foreclosures. When the bank forecloses on a property, they buy it back at an auction for the amount of the mortgage. They then sell the house for fair market value (what the house is really worth on the open market), taking the loss at the time they sell the property. Because house prices have dropped, the mortgage amount is often much higher than fair market value. For example, the mortgage on a 2000 sq. ft. house is $300,000 at the time of foreclosure. So the bank buys it at the auction for $300,000 (basically from themselves). The sale at the auction is recorded by the county assessor as $300,000. This shows the property value as much higher than the fair market value. The actual fair market value of the property is $210,000. The bank then puts it on the market for $215,000. There is a large lag time between the auction sale and the fair market sale--often over one year. These websites do not account for this, giving you the wrong fair market value for your home.

You can get a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) from us for free. Please fill out the information below, and in the message section give the property address and ask for a CMA.