HOME VALUES, HOMEBUYERS, HOME SELLERS, COMPARABLES
How Comparables Are Chosen
Whether you’re selling your home or buying a home, your Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices network professional will provide you with a comparative market analysis (CMA), a computer-generated report that shows you what homes similar to yours are selling for in your area, or how the home you’re interested in buying compares to other homes on the market.
CMAs are only available to members of the local multiple listing service, which include licensed real estate agents, brokers, appraisers, real estate attorneys, and local property tax authorities. It takes skill and experience to create a report that can help you choose a listing price range for your home or to help you make an offer on one of the homes you’re seeing.
A CMA can be as narrow as a city block or as broad as a zip code. It can include data on homes for the latest week, month, or six-month period. It can show you homes for sale and those that have recently sold. CMAs can be made specific with search parameters that show only one-story homes, condos, or homes with swimming pools.
Occasionally, you’ll find that the CMA doesn’t have a nearby comparable. In that case, the search parameters must be widened, which may not give as true a picture of value, for the neighborhood.
You may be pleased or dismayed by what the CMA shows, but you should know that it’s an accurate depiction in real time of current market conditions—until a new comparable changes the results.
HOMEOWNERS, HOME SELLERS, HOME IMPROVEMENT, MARKET CONDITIONS, HOME VALUES
What’s Decreasing Your Home’s Value?
There’s not much you can do about the location of your home, but that may be one of the reasons why your home’s value isn’t as high as you wish it were. What you can do is make sure other aspects of your property are desirable. When you’re selling your home, you want to meet as many homebuyer preferences as possible and keep them in mind as you search for your next home.
Noise – Traffic noise, basketball-bouncing teenagers, loud music, and construction are just a few things homebuyers don’t want to hear. Add more insulation in the walls, and replace single pane windows with sound-muffling double pane or storm windows
.
Danger – A home built too close to a busy street, homes with scary guard dogs, and bars on the windows make homebuyers wary. Take Cujo to a pet sitter during showings.
High Maintenance Costs – You love your swimming pool and spa, but your homebuyer may not. Don’t make improvements that won’t resell well unless you really want them and they make sense for your home and area.
Luxury features in a starter home – If you’re selling a starter or mid-range home, luxury appliances and finishes are appealing, but homebuyers won’t pay extra for them.
Tacky neighbors – Yes, your neighbors can bring your home’s value down as well as up. Junk in the yard, peeling paint and obvious deferred maintenance can be off-putting to homebuyers. Get the other neighbors together and offer to help the homeowner, especially seniors on fixed incomes.
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