How does a realtor determine the price of my home in Bellingham WA?

A CMA or Comparable Market Analysis helps you and your Realtor come to an agreement on what price your home should sell for. Naturally markets change as we saw from 2006 to 2009. How do we keep abreast on how much a home is worth? Your Realtor should have some concept on how an appraisal works. We use comparables, hence the name, or inventory sold to look at what has sold in the past 6 months. This is because on average the market does not change in terms of appreciation very much except for seasonally adjusted prices. From there we do what appraisers do, we look at how your house compares to the others sold. In theory, if we had a perfect match then we would know at what price to sell your house. However, there are likely to be differences. These differences we have to adjust for. We adjust the comparable or non subject property to find out the value of the subject or property to be sold. If the comparable has 1 more bedroom, then we know that house is worth more, so we adjust the price sold on the comparable downwards to be adjusted to our subject property. I have taken all state educational courses to be an appraiser just to help my clients find out the best price to list their home. Why? Because every dollar counts – that’s why. I treat it like it was my own money. We also look at location and curb appeal to determine how to value the house. There are many factors. One of the most important is location and age of the house. Newer housing has to follow updated codes which are better to live in because they are stricter with quality. I am also a licensed Home Inspector and General Contractor. I understand what things costs to install so can accuratelyevaluate how much to add or subtract from the comparable to get a price. Why? Because once you decide to list you want to get it sold ASAP. So listing too high won’t be doing my clients any favors besides placing expectations that will be a let down. I price it so my sellers have room to negotiate but still will walk away with a great deal. If we over price, and the appraisal comes back as lower than the agreed upon price, we will most likely have to adjust downward anyway. Feel free to call me if you have questions.  Derek Worchel 360 389 7988.   I don’t mind helping out.