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   151

   

   6-12-11

   MrsFF says:

   < What the finders found >

    
   Ahhh, home sweet home. What’s not so sweet, though, is how much value so many of our homes have lost over the years. You know what you paid for it when you bought it — but how can you find out how much your home (whether that’s a house, a condo or apartment) is worth right now?

   

   Guesstimates and estimates

   To get an idea of your house’s current value, we recommend two sites — Trulia and Zillow — which are separate companies, but, for average everyday homeowners like us, they work in a very similar way. Essentially, they gather data from public records and from their partners to compare sales trends in your area, then estimate a value of your home.

   Trulia: A real estate search engine that helps site visitors find homes for sale and provides local real estate trend information. Trulia gathers its information from brokers, agents, third party aggregators and Multiple Listing Services (MLS).

   Zillow: A real estate “information marketplace,” providing information about homes, real estate listings and mortgages in most areas. Data is available at the state, metro, county, city, ZIP and neighborhood level. (Zillow also serves as the backend for many other property searches.)

   To work out your house’s value using Trulia and/or Zillow, look up your address and review the information they use to assess your home’s valuation. If it’s off — for instance, the number of bedrooms or bathrooms is wrong, or you have air conditioning but it’s not listed — click the “Edit home facts” button/link and update it. (You will need to join the sites in order to alter your own home’s stats.)

   A few more sites to see

   Here are a few other sites to visit if you want to get an even broader perspective, or just more data sources:

   • Realtor.com: To get an estimated value for your home, on the main page, under home type, select “Not for sale.”
   • Yahoo! Real estate home values: For a little fun, before you look up your own house’s value, check out their famous home values.
   • AOL Real estate home values: Find out how local home prices are trending.