To estimate a value of a house, you need to look at properties that have sold. We call these real estate comps. Here’s how.
Your very first step, if you already know what type of property you’re interested in buying or selling, is to check online real estate portals that show recent sales data. It is an advantage to get to know values in your area of interest. You can perform a search on a real estate website for homes like the one you are going to buy or sell.
Include the property details i.e., size within a couple of hundred square feet, a similar year, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and top features like a pool or finished basement also include the type of property,single-family home, or townhouse, or condo.
Take the 3 most recent sales, and create an average. As a DMV real estate agent, I do my best to find homes that have sold in the past 30- 60 days.
If I can’t find homes that match up in size and features, I’ll use the square foot method. This is where you take the average price per square foot of recent sales, and multiply that by the square foot of the home that I’m running a comp on.
Then, I can estimate the additional value items that make this house unique.