To begin with, the results of your appraisal should be for your personal use only – just for the sake of peace of mind. If you intend to apply for a mortgage, you would need the services of a professional appraiser.
The easiest method to use for a personal appraisal of your home is pretty much the same as buying anything else. For instance, you would shop around and compare prices before buying a new pair of shoes. Even professional appraisers rely heavily on this method, which is better known as sales comparison approach. In other words, you have to create a list of homes similar to yours so that you can get an idea of your home’s worth.
Listings can be found online. However, if your online listings are not helpful to you for some reasons, you can contact a local realtor to help you out. Most likely, he can provide you with a listing for free.
Once your comparisons are complete, you can do a simple math. Get the average price of at least three homes in the list. Let’s say, three of the homes closest to yours are valued at $150,000, $180,000 and $202,000. Adding these values will give you $532,000. Dividing $532,000 by three, the average value of your home is $177,333. That’s the nearest appraisal of your home.
Now that you have appraised the value of your home, you can begin to improve its value. Doing some renovations will surely increase the value of your home. But remember, this appraised value is for personal consumption only. If you are planning on applying for a home mortgage, you would need the help of a professional appraiser for a more accurate appraisal of your home.