How To Conduct A Free Property Valuation

All homeowners at some point wonder exactly how much their property is worth. For some the rigmarole of getting an agent or surveyor into the property can be too much and would prefer to conduct the process themselves for free. This is perfectly possible, making a free valuation of your own property may arise out of a need to sell, an assessment of an investment or even purely out of curiosity. The best way to conduct the process can be done from the comfort of your own home, as the internet has a number of resources to help you in the task of making a property valuation free from bias and prejudice.

The first step of making your property valuation is to find out what similar houses along your street have sold for. This information can be found for free on a number of different websites that allow the user to simply enter a postcode and find out exactly what prices properties along their street have sold for. Even for those who are not selling it can be interesting to find out what neighbour's houses have sold for. In most cases these websites take their information from the Land Registry meaning it will typically be three or so months old and not extremely accurate.

The next step is to go onto one of the many free online property valuation tools. It is important however to take the valuation figures produced by these tools with a pinch of salt. This is mainly due to the fact that these automated systems rely upon a comparative process that does not take into the character or any unique features in a property. They will work well if your home is precisely the same as every other along the street but if it is slightly different it is likely that the valuation will not be accurate. Not all of these services are free but it is advisable to stick with the free services as accuracy is such an issue.

While it is fine to draw on existing data when it comes to calculating house prices it is also important to study trends in the property market. The Land Registry can once again be used for this purpose as it has an index of house prices that allow the user to look at average prices on both a national and regional basis. Additionally some banks also have this sort of service that present statistical information through a variety of mediums.

Understandably no one can predict exactly how the property market is to perform in the coming months. Some agents will try but these forecasts are rarely free from bias and vested interest. However, while predicting the future of property valuation figures is difficult there are many pundits out there who try. For those who want an idea of how the property market could shape up in the future there is a wealth of information on the internet presented by media companies and industry insiders. Once again taking these predictions as gospel is ill advisable but it can be interesting to join in the conjecture.

Hopefully this article has given homeowners an idea of how to conduct a property valuation for free and under their own steam. However, it is important to realise that estate agents and surveyors should still be used when attempting to find a realistic asking price; these are the people with the most experience and knowledge of the market and subsequently will be able to produce the most accurate figure.

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