Tuesday, November 19, 2013

What Is Affecting Home Values?

By Matt Baumberger


Are you looking to buy a house, sell your home or already own one? Discover what factors effect home values. If you have ever bought or sold a house, most likely an appraiser was hired to calculate the homes market value. Many factors can affect your home's worth and it's a good idea to know them. Some can't be fixed, but change the variables you can.

Painting, landscaping, fixing light fixtures and the overall home's condition are important factors. An appraiser views your property as a potential buyer. They will discover anything that may affect the house's value.

Home values are also affected by renovations and upgrades to the property. Remodeling your home will increase its worth. The value will decrease if other similar homes in the area have newer upgrades that you don't have. Installing things like central air and hardwood floors will help increase your home's value. So will bathroom and kitchen remodels.

Your house's value will be affected by where it is located. It's important for it to be located near schools, hospitals, malls major highways. No one wants these accommodations in their backyard, but want them near by. Other important note, a home located in a upscale, suburban neighborhood will be worth more than a property situated in a high crime, urban development.

The biggest determining factor for home values is the selling price of other similar homes in the area, otherwise known as comps. Using county and tax records, and by inspecting the exterior of these homes, the appraiser will compare these to your home.

These factors above can be changed by you or someone else. Below are ones that cannot be fixed so easily but can affect home values a lot more.

A property's value can be hurt greatly by residing sex offenders in the area. Your home will depreciate more the closer you live to one of these creeps.

Foreclosure scares homeowners. A foreclosed home in your neighborhood will greatly affect your homes worth.

Closed schools will also damage the value of a property. A government in debt, that decides to close some schools to save money, will crush surrounding property values. The quality and availability of schools is essential to a potential buyer with children.

A study done at Berkeley states that living within 2 miles of a power plant can decrease your property value by 7%.

Home values are greatly affected by all these factors so do your best to change the ones you can and avoid the ones can not.




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