How To Evaluate A House

As of market value, agents or appraisers use recent sales in one mile (in most cases) radius as reference. It is called Com(comparable properties).Only the property that are most similar in sqft, style, bedroom, age, condition will be used.
1. Pick 3-5 com properties
2. Subtract or add value to the com, (not to the subject property) if necessary give higher weight to the property that are closer to the subject property and do an average number and make a decision.
3. In this market, the market trend need to be considered as well.

That is just the theory. In real life scenario, an experienced agent within his familiar area, can give you a very good estimate without any calculations.Buyer agent are discouraged to do any calculation for clients to avoid liability issue, unless the price is completely out of the range.

The client bought the house might blame her agent wasted her few thousand Dollar. While another client who did not get the house might blame her agent made her missed the opportunity. Now you see why the agents keep their mouths shut.

No matter what, if you bought the house, you paid the highest price for the house. If you did not get it, someone out bid you.

In any case, you should ask your agent to pull a CMA(comparable market Analysis) report for you. You can play around the data by yourself if you feel you can figure it out.

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