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When you are buying or selling a home, you cannot rely on online home valuations. The true value of a property is determined by three main factors. Buying a Hampton Roads home? Get a full home search Selling your Hampton Roads home? Get a free Home Price EvaluationThere are many factors that affect your home’s value. Whether you are buying or selling a home, you should not make important decisions based on online home valuations, like Zillow. It’s fine to look at those if you are just keeping an eye on sales in the neighborhood, but if you’re buying or selling a home, I recommend hiring an agent who knows what they are doing to look at the home. After all, those online sites cannot look at the main factors that actually impact home value.When determining home value, you have to compare apples to apples. Look at the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and square footage of homes in your neighborhood. Some areas may have foreclosed properties that are in terrible condition right alongside remodeled homes; the difference in value can be about 25%. A good agent knows the inventory, will look at those homes, and compare yours to the homes it matches best. That way, you won’t end up over or underpricing your home. Your agent can also give you tips to increase your home’s value so that you sell at the higher end of your neighborhood market. The next factor you should pay attention to is sold or pending properties. Those properties will act as a price ceiling for your home, as they are what an appraiser uses to validate the value of your home. Your home price cannot be too far above those pending or sold properties. You need to look at your competition.Finally, you need to look at the active competition. Right now, we are in a low inventory market. There is not a lot of competition out there, so you can be a little more aggressive in that value range and sell your house for more money. If you only look at sold or pending properties, you might sell your home for a little less, so that active competition is very important. So, the three factors that determine your home value are comparable properties in your neighborhood, pending and sold properties, and your competition. If you have any questions about what your home is worth or if you would like to learn more about our current market, just give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!