Let’s face it. There isn’t one person on the planet that isn’t at least a little bit curious of what their home is worth. That raises the all important question of how do you get an accurate valuation of your home?

While the Internet is a thing and it does make life easy, those Automatic Valuation Models such as Zillow, Trulia and many others similar do very little in getting you an accurate estimate. Determining how much your home is worth is much more complicated than a few clicks of a mouse.

Every property is unique. Each property has certain valuable pieces to it that are strictly related to that property. Because of this, no algorithm in the world, no matter how complex can truly assess the value of your home accurately. This is actually a great problem creator in the Real Estate Industry. Both buyers and sellers that use these AVM sources to get home values will inevitably end up pricing their home, or offering money for a home in a way that is either too high, or too low, thus not only giving them a bad deal, but impacting the prices of other homes in the area as well.

Obviously at the end of the day, no matter how much research and how solid a home valuation is, a home is only worth what a buyer is willing to pay for it. There is nothing wrong with being prepared though, and today we’d like to share with you three ways you can get a home valuation that will be accurate.

Ask a Realtor® For A CMA

If you know a Real Estate Agent, ask them to prepare a CMA for your home. CMA stands for competitive market analysis. Unlike automated valuations, Realtors® that prepare CMA’s will be able to take into account the value of all the improvements you have made on your home, trends that are going on in your marketplace, and many other tiny details that only a professional Real Estate Agent would know.

We provide CMA’s for all our clients and even prospective clients we are looking to work with. If you ask, anyone should be happy to prepare one for you.

D.I.Y.

Again, like the Automated Valuation Model, this is nowhere near as effective as working with a Realtor®, but with a little elbow grease, and taking the time to build intelligence, this can work.

Start by searching your local MLS for open houses of homes in your area, that on the surface seem the same. Go to the open house, tour the home and OBJECTIVELY compare the features, amenities, location, etc. to your own home. Next, you want to keep an eye on those homes and see what they ended up selling for. Based on those two things, you can put together a rough assumption as to what your home is worth.

I say “rough assumption”, simply because it’s not as good as a professional valuation from a Realtor®, however, given the fact that you can take into account improvements, and the nuances that only someone in your neighborhood would know about the home, you will be much closer to the actual valuation then the AVM models.

Get An Appraisal

An appraisal is an on-site inspection, combined with a selection of comparable sales in the area. Appraisers also review local market trends. By following this combination of items, they are able to get a very accurate value for your home.

While it is true that an appraisal isn’t necessarily the final word on the value of a home, as far as a financial institution may be concerned, they are still pretty solid indicators of what your home is worth.