Valuing Your Home
Understanding Your home's Value.
Entering the MLS with your best foot forward is imperative in this competitive market we’re currently experiencing in the Finger Lakes. In this climate, increased DOM (Days On Market) due to over valuation and higher list price can drastically effect your sales price. We encourage homeowners to trust our experienced and knowledgeable listing agents in their professional opinion when it comes to putting a price tag on your home. Below are some of the key factors we consider when determining fair market value of your home.
- Performing a CMA (Comparative Market Analysis)
CMA’s are the primary method used to determine a home’s initial list price; it’s an estimate of a home's value based on similar recently sold properties in the immediate area. The location of your home or property will dictate where we will search through comparable homes. If the home is in a dense, heavily populated area we may only look at similar homes from within a mile of the property address, or maybe you’re located in a sought-after neighborhood which would require us to narrow the available comparable to only property addresses on a specific street. Contrarily, areas outside of immediate townships or city limits may call for a larger search, sometimes using comparative homes that are within the school district.
- Condition of The Market
If you’ve been considering selling your home for some time, then we’re sure that you’ve been monitoring the market...waiting for the best time to enter, in an effort to obtain the highest returns possible. You’ve seen that there’s up’s and there’s downs. Like any industry, the market fluctuate through expansions, peaks, and contractions. Here in the Finger Lakes, we (like many others in surrounding areas) have been experiencing a steady rise in the past years as the housing market has continued to thrive. Buyers are paying top dollar for homes across the board, and sales are up. What does this mean for you as a seller? There isn’t necessarily a bad time to list because whether inventory is low or high there isa surplus of buyers compared to sellers, given your home is near the average home price for the Finger Lakes region.
- Comparative Properties Under Contract and Current Active Listings
Comparable homes Under Contract can be extremely indicative as to how the market is performing; in regard to the home’s similarity to yours, the Days On Market (DOM), and the list price versus the sales price.
Like homes Under Contract, the current inventory is also something to take into consideration (though with an immense grain of salt because list price and sales price will often times be vastly different), but this can give us greater insight on the list price of comparable homes versus their DOM. Listing agents of active comparable homes likely went through a similar process of valuing, so we can take their list price into consideration when getting an understanding of the market condition.
