So you truly want to find out how much your home may be worth in todays real estate market.

Lets take a look at the choices and models available to you.

HouseValues.com: HouseValues.com counts on site visitors to answer about two dozen questions, which are then forwarded to a local agent who pays for the lead. Agents prepay for service areas. When leads are received by HouseValues.com, they are sent to the agent for the area. These leads are assigned to Agents that prepay a monthly amount to secure an area or selected zip codes. According to reports regarding HouseValues.com "A weaker residential housing market has hurt. The end of the speculative boom is making homeowners, resale renovators, and condo-flippers less interested in knowing what their homes are worth. Cash-strapped Realtors are backing out of the program." This begs the question, how accurate is the values that a home owner ultimately gets from the system? and what is the motivation of the agent to provide an accurate value?, a topic that will be covered in just a moment.

Zillow: As puzzling as where they got their name is where they get the data from. Countless stories have arisen regarding the wrong information being recorded about properties # of bedrooms, bathroom, size, etc. No weight is given for overall condition or improvements. There own website states the following: "Our data shows that the majority of our Zestimate home valuations are within 10% of the selling price of the home. Of course, to a certain extent this depends on the accuracy of the home data we receive." 10% is the difference between your home selling and your home sitting. Fact is, with the average Sale price of Northern Virginia Homes for Sale being $507,546.40 in June of 2007, that is an amount of over $50,000 that the Zestimate could be off.

Homegain.com: Another data collector or lead generation engine like Housevalues.com. Inquiries from curious homeowners are posted to the site that Agents post resumes to, allowing the home owner to "compare agent". Homegain takes a minimum of one third of the commissions from the listing agent as a "referral fee" leaving the agent with very little money or incentive left to spend on attracting buyers to your home.. This leads to Agents given a proposed selling value that is higher than the marketplace or at least higher than the other homegain agent proposal in an attempt to win favor from the home owner, trying to secure the listing. This ultimately could cost the homeowner money.

Consider what happens when a house is put on the market for sale, the initial wave of buyers is the most important. When a house is overpriced, they categorize the home as overpriced, they move on to other properties & the Homeowners end up having to eventually dropping the price below market value just to get the attention of the market again.

All this becuase the agent was trying to gain favor or recover upfront cost (Housevalues) or cover referral fees (Homegain) in the end.

Add to this that all of the previously mentioned systems are online based systems. A computer for an online evaluation has not way of telling the condition of the property & how it actually compares to those that are currently listed or recently sold. A Comparative Market Analysis performed by a Local Realtor: Best bet is to have a comparive market analysis performed by a local real estate agent with specialty and expertise in your particular market & area. A good CMA lays out the comparison of the owners home to other homes that have recently actually sold and it also provides an opportunity for the Agent to show the techniques & marketing strategies that they will use to ensure that the home owner gets top dollar.

Robert Earl – Founder of The Earl of Real Estate Team is a Real Estate Entrepreneur & Real Estate Coach based in the Northern Virginia. The Earl of Real Estate Team specializes in Herndon VA Real Estate, Condos, Townhomes & Homes for Sale

- Robert Earl The Earl of Real Estate

What are your thoughts on the subject?

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