How much is my home worth?

Your home value is an estimation of what your home is worth. Sometimes referred to as “fair market value”, it's the price that a willing and informed buyer and a willing and informed seller can agree on.

There are three types of home value commonly associated with real estate:

Appraised value:
According to Investopedia, appraised value is a home’s value as determined by a professional appraiser at a given point in time. Appraised value is used by mortgage lenders during the underwriting process to determine how much a buyer can borrow.

Assessed value:
Assessed values are used to determine how much property tax is owed on a home. Assessed value is set by a municipal or county tax assessor, who evaluates the home’s features and those of comparable properties to arrive at a valuation. It’s typically a lower number than fair market value.

Fair market value:
Fair market value refers to how a home is valued when both the buyer and seller are reasonably knowledgeable about the property and neither is under any pressure to buy or sell. According to Realtor.com, fair market value tends to be the truest measure of a home’s value overall, since it’s based primarily on supply and demand.

Home equity is the percentage of your home that you truly own. Let’s say you bought your home entirely with your own cash, then you would have 100 percent equity. However, most people choose to borrow money to buy a home, which means they slowly build equity as they repay the loan with interest each month. You can estimate your home equity by subtracting the amount of money you owe on the home (remaining loan balance) from the amount of money you could sell your home for (market price).

→ Learn more about the most important real estate terms.

One of the best indicators of your home’s value is the sale prices of similar homes in your neighborhood that have sold recently. These comparable homes are often referred to as “comps”. Other important factors include location, home size and usable space, age, and condition as well as upgrades and updates.

→ Learn more about the critical factors that impact your home value

There are two basic steps to calculating home value:

Step 1: Comparable home sales
When finding comparable homes (also known as comps) it’s important that they’re similar to the home being valued in several ways. First, they should be nearby, ideally within the same subdivision or zip code. Second, it’s important that the comps are homes that were recently sold—the more recent the better. Last, the homes should have similar location characteristics, for example they’re both situated on a quiet street or backed to a park.

Step 2: Making adjustments
Because no two homes are exactly the same, it's important to make dollar value adjustments to reflect unique features, upgrades and conditions of the home being valued. In addition to adjusting for home features, it is also important to adjust for market trends, like how quickly homes in your area have been appreciating in price. The more information and data points that are included, the more accurate the home value calculation can be.

→ Learn more about how to determine the value of your home.

As you prepare to sell your house, you might consider cost-effective renovations or upgrades. We’ve highlighted over 15 tips to boost your home’s valuation in an in-depth guide. Here are some of the recommendations:

1. Update the essentials (water heater, electrical panel, furnace)
2. Remember regular maintenance (e.g. A/C tune-up, weatherstripping around your windows, updating fixtures like knobs, handles, and faucets etc.)
3. Improve curb appeal
4. Clean and declutter your home
5. Paint the interior with neutral tones

→ Learn more about how to increase the value of your home.

There’s a lot of opinions on the topic so we took a scientific approach. We studied 11 home improvement projects and ranked them by the average value increase across the cities where we buy and sell homes. Based on Opendoor's proprietary data, these are the top three renovation, remodeling, and home improvement projects that increase home values:

1. Adding a pool
2. Finishing a basement
3. Adding up to a 3rd bedroom

See the full list of top projects or use our home improvement calculator to see which projects can have the biggest increase on your home value. It’s a great way to estimate the ROI of a project before taking on the work.

→ Try the home improvement calculator

Ultimately, the housing market is influenced by supply (the number of homes for sale) and demand (the number of people ready and willing to buy a home). Your home value will fluctuate based on changes in supply and demand. For example, if there are few homes in your neighborhood for sale, and a lot of people who want to buy homes in that location, then the value of your home is likely to rise, allowing you to sell your home at a higher price.

There are trends affecting supply and demand at the local level, like the seasonality of where you live and new homes being built in your area. There are also broader trends that affect the national housing market like interest rates, the economy, and affordability.

→ Learn more about understanding local real estate trends or read our in-depth guide on today’s housing market trends