One of the biggest stumbling blocks for homeowners who are trying to sell their Toronto lofts or Mississauga properties themselves is that they don't know how much to ask buyers for. Real estate agents draw from their extensive knowledge of the market, but without their help, how can you calculate your home's value? This article should provide you with some avenues you can pursue to find the right price for your listing.

Appraisal

The only sure-fire way to arrive at a price both you and the buyer can trust to be fair and objective (or at least as fair and objective as you can get in the real estate business) and that's to hire an appraiser. For a flat fee of about $200, an appraiser will come in to inspect your Markham real estate and tell you what he or she believes would be fair market value for the property. The inspection is based on the appeal to buyers and investment potential, not on an in-depth study of the code compliance of your house.

Paid + Improvements

Another method you might find useful, especially if you haven't owned your home for long, is to take the price you paid for the property and add the value of any improvements (or subtract the value of anything that's deteriorated) to arrive at the asking price. Keep in mind though that Port Perry homes and other real estate in the Greater Toronto Area can appreciate greatly in value in just a few months, so the tendency here might be for you to undervalue the home.

Comparison

What realtors do when they're helping you decide what to put as the asking price on your home is to consult the reams of statistics on real estate for sale in Toronto that are available to people in their profession. They look at how much other homes in your neighborhood are selling for and the asking prices of similarly sized properties in Toronto and extrapolate them to arrive at a value. You can inexpertly replicate this process by touring your neighborhood for realtor listed homes of the same size and condition as yours and noting what they're asking.


Market Value

Fair market value is generally considered to be the listing price you should aim for. But how do you tell what fair market value is for your particular home without hiring a professional? One way to do it is to look up the average price per square in your area and multiply that by the number of livable (i.e. not garage or unheated attic) square feet in your home. Keep in mind though that these averages can be dragged down by Edmonton foreclosures or artificially inflated by circumstance, so make sure the figure is based on a large sample.