The Benefit of Knowing the True Value of Your Home

There may be a difference between what you home is worth to you and its value on the real estate market. The value of your home for sale purposes is called its true value and this is what banks and other lenders look at when approving a mortgage.

You may simply want to know what your home is worth in comparison with other homes on your street that are for sale. You may want to see if there are areas where you can increase the value of your home without spending a lot of money and therefore make a larger profit if you decide to sell.

When you are intending to sell and purchase a new home, you need to know the true value of your home for two reasons. The first is that you have a good idea of the price at which you should put it for sale. Sellers usually price their home high with the knowledge that they will have to come down in price through the selling negotiations. You need to know that you can get an amount higher than what you owe on your mortgage so that you can walk away from the sale with a profit.

The second reason for knowing the true value of your home is to help you determine the price range of homes in which you can look when you want to buy another house, especially if you want to upgrade. The amount of your income is one of the factors lenders use in determining how much money you can borrow in a mortgage. Another important criteria is your credit history.

If you can walk away from the sale of your home with a sizeable profit, this will give you the money you need to make a higher than usual down payment and allow you to purchase a more expensive home than you would otherwise be able to afford.

Some homeowners use estate agents to provide them with a valuation of their home. It is important to know that the true value you receive from one agent may not be the same as that of another because of their need to make a sale and the types of property they are involved in selling.

Just as experts recommend you get at least three quotes when you are purchasing home insurance, you should request three valuations of your home from the agents of three different real estate companies. This will give you a good idea of what your home is worth.

When you take the valuations offered by different estate agents, you will be able to make a better decision on the price at which you can sell your home. One valuation only may not be accurate reflection of the amount of money you could realize from the sale.

Then when you contact a second agent, there may be a large discrepancy in the figure you are quoted. By having a third or even fourth valuation, you will have a more precise idea of where you stand on the real estate market and your chances of making a quick sale based on the price you decide to charge.

When obtaining valuations on your property from different estate agents, you should never make the mistake of telling each one that you are looking for a second opinion on the true value of your home. The first thing each agent will want to know is the amount the previous one(s) gave you and this agent will not bother with doing an accurate assessment.

Instead you can be assured that the valuation will be very close to the others you have received. You do need to make sure you are receiving an unbiased valuation based on your home itself and the prices at which homes in your area similar to yours have sold for in recent months.

There are also property websites with up-to-date information about recent UK house sales that may be of benefit to you in obtaining the true value of your home. When you browse these sites, you can see photos of houses for sale and read the descriptions of the homes and the locations.

This will help give you an approximate value to work with and to have in mind when you ask for expert valuations. In this way, you can check on the validity of the true value prices that you receive from the various estate agencies you use.

Home buyers want the lowest possible price and sellers want the highest possible price.  This is why buyers do negotiate the price and try to bring it down lower, no matter how low you already set the price of your home.

If you want to get the true value of your home on the market, one thing you can do is set the selling price higher than this, knowing that you can drop down the price to what you are willing to accept in the final sale.