Are Free Home Appraisals A Good Way To Determine A Home’s Value?

Mar 19, 2024 | Published by Leave your thoughts

There are tons of websites that provide free home appraisals. It sounds like a great idea, right? A free house appraisal? Stop right there. Sometimes, you really get what you pay for, and with a free home appraisal, you get nothing.

Here’s why:

Home appraisal and valuation sites that offer “free” or “instant” services are a dime a dozen on the internet. This seems like a good value — after all, it’s free and it’s instant. Getting the true market value estimate of your home never works that way. What these websites offer is actually an inaccurate value for the house you’re trying buy or sell.

Instant home appraisal sites vary greatly in the numbers they provide. For example, a house may be valued completely differently by three different websites! After we experimented with three different valuation sites, we saw a difference of over $20,000.00 in price! Isn’t that crazy? How can one home be valued at three completely different rates with such a high difference in price points? The highest and the lowest values were a complete mismatch.

That extra $20,000.00 is money that will come out of your pocket if you accept a valuation report that undervalues your property!

When you want true market value, you need to work with an experienced appraiser that knows your area and the surrounding homes, not a website that has no real connection to the local listings and sales. Public records are one thing, really understanding neighborhoods, local parks and etc., is how an appraiser really measures the accurate value of a home.

So, why is that appraisers can tell the true market value of a home better that an automated valuation (internet site) can?

  • An appraiser comes to your home and measures every room. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve noticed that public records get things wrong, especially square footage and add-ons.
  • The appraiser actually sees your home. Sure, some of the homes in your area may seem similar, but is your home more modern? Is it neatly maintained and has a new paint job? These things make a difference and can get your home a higher appraisal. No internet website would be able to distinguish between a totally dilapidated home that sold and your home that has been taken care of.
  • All of our expert appraisers know neighborhood boundary lines, near-by highways, churches and so on. They also understand how that impacts the community. Can an internet website showcase that kind of savvy? I don’t think so.

If you don’t believe us, go ahead and try out one or more “free home appraisal” sites and see for yourself! The numbers you get will vary and you might just get an inaccurate home value if you put your home on the market. Are you really willing to lose $20,000.00 of your hard earned cash?

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This post was written by Joseph Castaneda

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