If you are preparing or planning to sell your home at some point in the future, this website is for you. There are thousands of web sites that show you how to increase property value by making changes to your house. We offer a much simpler and cheaper solution: We show you how to increase the online value of your home – and thereby increase your chance to sell for more.
Online home valuation tools have become widely used tools in the home selling and buying process. More and more homebuyers rely on online databases to research their next home. The most important information in those databases is the estimated value of the property. When the potential buyer finds your house, they will immediately notice the estimated value of your house. Imagine what happens if that estimated value is 10%, 20% or even 40% below your listing price. Many buyers consider the online estimate a correct estimate, and they will not want to pay anywhere near your asking price. Now imagine that you could increase the online estimate. In the mind of the buyer, the house is worth more and they will be more willing to pay your price.
We show you some simple tips and tricks and also let you in on some secrets to increase the online value of your house. Click on the links below to find out more:
One of the most prominent databases is zillow.com. If you haven’t come across them, take a look and see how much they think your house is worth. Most of your potential buyers will also take a look.
Why are online databases like zillow.com so important?
When you ask the agents they are likely going to tell you that the zillow.com values are off, that you shouldn’t rely on them and instead you should seek the expert advice of a seasoned pro. The realtors don’t like you to look at zillow.com. It takes away one of the reasons to contact them, namely to find out the value of a property, and it undermines one of the key areas of their expertise – and justifications to charge their fees – namely to come up with a realistic estimate of the value of real estate.
If you are like most people, part of you thinks “Yeah, the agent is right. They know the neighborhood better, they know much more about the details of the properties and can factor in their level of renovation and what else might be important” – and the other part of you thinks: “I’ll take a look at Zillow anyway, just to see what the value is”. And once you see the number, that number gets stuck in your mind. And once you see that number it’ll get stuck in your mind.
Be honest, how likely are you to accept later that the ‘real value’ of the house should be 30% different from what is on Zillow. And how easy do you think is it, to convince a potential buyer that the price you want is way above Zillow’s estimate (Zestimate). It’ll take a lot of convincing to get the buyer to accept a higher figure – and in today’s market, this is not going to happen. Once a buyer see the Zestimate, it sticks. And therein lies the power of Zillow. But this is not where the story stops. Zillow pulls from many data sources when they calculate the estimate for your house price. And here comes the key point: some of these data sources can be influenced by you. You can impact the estimate that is shown for your house – and by doing so you can take control of the price you will achieve in your sale. This site shows you how to do this.
Managing the Zestimate – Increase the Property Value
Every smart agent will tell you that you need to ‘attend’ to your Zillow entries before putting the house on the market. But did you know that it takes weeks or months before the changes you make have an effect on Zillow? There are several tips on Zillow.com that tell you what you can do. And there are some more tools here. Read our Tips and Tricks to understand what you can do to improve your Zillow value now.
One thing that is important to remember is this: anything you do to influence the Zestimate will take some time to kick in. Even if you put in the most fantastic improvement or addition to the house and you enter it into Zillow, the value of your house will not jump up over night. Any value increase will be gradual. It is very important to plan ahead. Whatever you want to do to influence your Zillow value, you need to do it some time before you put the house on the market.
In our experience, you want to start this process at least two months before you attempt to sell the house. With that lead time you can significantly impact the Zestimate. Bear in mind though, a potential buyer who looks up your house on Zillow will see the higher value – and they will also see a gradual increase in the property value over the past weeks. That means you need to be ready to explain that increase.
If you want to be on the safe side, start managing your Zillow value today – no matter whether you want to sell your house now or not. Chances are, at some point you will want to sell. And it’s good to be ready for the sale without having to worry about the Zestimate at that time.
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