Leaving Money on the Table
If your agent doesn’t measure your house (or have it measured) , before you determine the listing price, chances are you are leaving money on the table. Size Does Matter…
Square footage has always been important to the home valuation process. In today’s market, it is a necessity to make sure the numbers are accurate. Without an accurate measurement of your home, chances are, you are going to leave money on the table; money that rightfully belongs to you. You may be selling below the value you thought your home was worth just a year or two ago. With a market already pushing prices down in many markets, don’t take the chance and not get all you deserve. Even in areas where the real estate market is still strong, without accurate square footage details, you are not going to get the full and fair value for your home. Real estate valuation includes is a price-per-square-foot formula, where whatever square footage total your agent uses will determine the value of your home. Just look at the CMA your agent provides you. Look up any automated valuation service. You can’t look up real estate values without seeing the price-per-square-foot formula somewhere in the process. It’s just the way it’s always been done, and always will be. Since it is just fact of the real estate business, you must work within the system. And, the system requires the use of square footage. In that case, the use of accurate square footage will make you more money. This is not rocket science. Take the square footage of your home and multiply it by your home’s square footage total.
Check out Zillow® and Trulia®. Two of the biggest real estate sites always show this magical formula. It’s the only way they know to determine home values. They use two numbers; the size and the sales price. The system might work well with perfect information. The problem is, the real estate information system is far from perfect. If home values are based on only two numbers and one of those numbers is wrong, guess what – the home value is also going to be wrong. It happens every day. After studying automated valuation systems, the MLS, and public records information for almost ten years, the system is totally out of control. Every home valuation contains at least one square footage mistake. It’s no wonder we had a real estate crisis. The home valuation system is broken. Whether it’s an agent creating a CMA or an appraisal, there’s is a very high chance it contains errors. Errors that alter home values. Mistakes are in 95% of all CMA’s and appraisals. Sound like an exaggeration? Try it for yourself. The numbers are easy to discover.
