What’s My House Worth?

It can be tough to come to accept your home’s value in a declining or volatile market, Huettner says, but it’s better to deal with it when putting your house on the market than letting it languish for months if the price is too high. “You will eventually find out the market value of your home,” he says. “Don’t wait for the market to show you when you finally sell. It costs so much more that way.”

Online Home Price Evaluation Tools

Real estate pricing experts say one easy first step for people considering selling, or just wondering about their equity, is visiting online home price tools. While you shouldn’t put too much emphasis on these prices, they may be good starting points. Here are some online tools that can help you figure the value of your home:

• Zillow allows you to plug in your home’s address to find recently sold properties on a map of your area. You can also check the prices of recent listings in your neighborhood, as well.
• Trulia shows listings, price reductions, and even a “real estate heat map” of average list prices of homes in your area. The downside: It shows listing prices, not selling prices.
• Domania, a website from Lending Tree, offers a “Home Price Check” section where you can type in an address and find out the selling price of a house sold within the past five years.
• Local Real Estate Web Sites: Some large Real Estate groups may compile a listing of the recently sold properties in their area. One example is Crye-Leike in Tennessee; its website allows you to plug in the address for a specific property to find out what it sold for.