Top Three Features that Determines Your Home's Value

by Yvette Betancourt 

There is an Open House in the area.  A new listing.  Neighbors and home buyers walk thru the property and evaluate home's size, construction (and interior design) quality and price.  Homeowners are evaluating the home's value and home buyers being much more critical about a home value than before!  Why? Because it's the wonderful free websites like Zillow.com that offer property data that include a computer-generated valuation which aggregate sales data from comparable properties to determine an estimated price.  These estimated price is what some buyers and homeowners assume to valued numbers to submit an offer or to determine if it's the right time to put their home on the market.  

These estimated values are a great starting point to determine price except these estimations can be off as much as 10%.  This percentage can hurt you especially when a home buyer is in a multiple-offer price range to buy.  It can hurt the home seller by delaying their plans to sell and gain a good return.  

So if sites like Zillow, or any free real estate site can properly determine the value of the home, who can?  Real estate agents.  The agent's access to the local MLS has information that include number of days on the market and notes about what type of concessions were made on the sale and so on, that determined the final purchase price. 

Here are our tips to do your own comparables based on the top three features that determine your home's value.  

1) Location

Location! Location! Location! Especially when you are comparing SOLD properties.  A professional appraiser will look at homes/properties within a one-mile radius or less and that is a great tip that you should do as well.  

For subdivisons, look at the houses that are all similar and built in the same period.  Don't forget to compare similar houses with similar styles in the same subdivision. 

For homes not in a subdivision, geographic lines such as the opposite of a river, a park, a main highway/street, a school district boundary affect the home values.  

2) Size

Evaluate the square footage.   Appraisers typically look at homes that are within 20% up and down in square footage  as comparables.   In subdivision, you should look at homes that exact to the homes square footage.  

Don't make the mistake of thinking that a house that is 10% bigger will be worth more 10% more.  the extra square footage only equals o a few percentage points in value.  

3) Bedrooms and Bathrooms

The number of bathrooms and bedrooms is more relevant than simply the raw square footage.  In other words, a three bedroom home with 1,200 sq ft  might be worth more than two bedrooms with 1,250 sqft.  Also the location of the bedrooms and bathrooms.

Make sure to look at the quality and number of bedrooms and baths. For example:

House 1: Three bedrooms 1300sqft
House 2: Two bedrooms 1200sqft

Result: House 1.

House A: Four Bedroom 2500 sqft
House B: Five Bedroom 2475 sqft
House C: Three Bedroom 2450 sqft

Result: House C.  The square footage is similar and the value isn't a drastic change as the previous example.

Let's look at bathrooms:


There are three common bathroom styles.  Full baths (shower, bath, toilet, and sink), a three-quarter bath (tub, toilet and sink), and half bath (toilet and sink).

A three-quarter or full bath are roughly the same value.  A five-piece bath doesn't add much value than a regular bathroom with a combination shower and tub.



Remember to look at pending and active homes to give you an idea of where the local market is heading.

To get a detailed home value report on your home, click here for a Free Home Value Evaluation Report.   If you are a home buyer, ask your real estate agent for a CMA or email us for a Free Property CMA.