Marketing real estate is a funny business. Day in and day out, Im asked by people what I think their property is worth. Its not a bad question. In fact, its a great question because I love helping people achieve their Boston area real estate goals.
Whats bad about the question is metro Boston real estate home values are inching upward so quickly, and sometimes so wildly, that to give a considered answer requires some study of the subject propertys hyper-local market.
I wont bore you with what goes into creating an opinion of worth, but I will say this, a comprehensive assessment has a pretty short shelf life right now. New and old comparable properties (comps) enter and exit the equation without so much as a by your leave.
To make the worth question even more difficult, in our Boston real estate markets era of record low housing inventory many times no relevant comps exist creating the need to extrapolate an opinion of worth similar to how an appraiser, or a mortgage underwriter does. The process is in essence one of comp-ing to relevant non-comps and adding in some dollar estimate of what makes the subject property unique. Needless to say, the inexact science of it all makes the exercise less than ideal.
Oops! I think Im in danger of boring you with what goes into creating an opinion of worth. Anyway, like I was explaining back at the top of this post
TIP: "How Much Is My Home Worth?"
Boston area home values are moving pretty fast and if you shop the "How much is my home worth?" question around to a number of real estate agents before choosing one to list and market your property, it's a good idea to have them all give their opinion worth for the same time period.
Based on how the market is behaving right now, asking for opinions of worth stretched out over several weeks will likely result in markedly different conclusions ... different because each represents an agent's opinion and different because the data studied is potentially wildly different.
The Markets Moving Are You?
Lets keep the conversation going. If youre contemplating selling a property, lets talk.
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