Whats my Home Worth? - How to use Yahoo Home Prices and Recently Sold Home Prices to learn Your Homes True Value

How to use Learn "Comparable Home Prices sold in my neighborhood" to find out Your Homes True Value in 3 easy Steps

These days, the answer to the question "whats my home worth?" might be depressing. But not knowing is not going to help you now is it?

Knowledge is power. Whether you are considering selling your home, renting it out, or even buying another home, this information is very important for you. Even if you plan on staying in your home for a while, it is always a good idea to know what the market is doing in your area.

There are a couple of ways to get an answer to the question "What's my home worth?". One way is to fill out a form on a site like homegain.com and wait for Realtors to contact you. Doesn't that sound exciting? I didn't think so. Realtors are pretty hungry these days. In other words, they will hound you relentlessly once they have your contact info. If you can be firm with a realtor, let her know you are just fact finding at the moment and tell her you really do not want to be in her "customer care program", you might be OK. Otherwise, it is best to gather info on your own. The search I am going to show you is free and you wont have any realtors calling you.

It is just simply using the "whats my home worth?" real estate page of Yahoo.com

Step #1 to learn Recent Home Sale Prices- Zip code...go to Yahoo.com

Here is how to find recent home sale prices by zip code...

First type in yahoo.com in your browser or just type yahoo in the search bar of google. Go to the yahoo home page and if you look closely you will see a link to real estate on the left side down about mid page.

Step #2 Once you are on the Yahoo real estate page, select Home values from the menu bar that runs across the page.

Step #3 To learn Recently sold Yahoo Home prices ...

HOT TIP...

It works better if you use street address and zip code rather than city and state.

Done...Good Job! You have answered your question "whats my home worth?"

Actual home sale prices sold in my Neighborhood

The way yahoo figures the value of your home is by pulling sold home prices and other information from public tax records on homes that have sold recently in your vicinity. If you were go to the courthouse yourself with addresses in hand, you could look up these records yourself on as many homes as you like. But that would involve driving through your neighborhood writing down the house numbers of all your neighbors, then physically driving to the courthouse in your town, finding the property tax department, then using their computers or getting a clerk to look all the info up for you. That is a lenghty process. I used to have to do it a lot when I was a realtor. The Yahoo search isn't as thorough as you could be with a trip to the courthouse, but you do save yourself a lot of trouble this way. Once you see the value of your home, look down at the bottom of the yahoo home values page to see what other homes have sold for in your area.

Look at the list very closely. You are more interested in "home prices sold in my neighborhood" and Yahoo sometimes pulls information that is not related to your search. For example, in the search I used for this page, only one other home had sold in the area of the address I used. All the rest were from Berkeley California--over 6000 miles away. So be careful to make sure the comparable sales are of houses that are in your area. Also make sure that the homes are similar to yours in style, number of bedrooms and baths, square footage--and whether or not they offer the same features like a basement, garage, etc. That is the best way to get an accurate comparison. Realtors do come in handy being able to adjust home values to allow for such differences as those just mentioned.

Now you have hard facts in front of you. This information is solid because it doesn't tell you what what people are asking for their homes--people rarely get asking price for their homes these days. The info you have tells you actual home sale prices---what buyers actually paid for the homes. This is the kind of factual info that appraisers use when preparing their reports for lenders.

My husband and I have been in our home for almost 13 years. We bought low, so even though the market has gone up and back down since then, we still have a good bit of equity in our home and a reasonable payment. We thought about it, but we will not be selling until home prices recover. Our decision was largely based upon the facts We have armed ourselves with regarding comparable home sales in our area. We may opt to rent this home out, move up to a nicer one, then sell this one when the market picks up. Now is a great time to buy and a terrible time to sell. The people who will benefit most in this market are first time homebuyers and renters who are ready to buy because they do not have to unload one home in order to buy another.
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