Know Your Housing Market

Know Your Housing Market!

Whether you are building, remodeling, or selling, know your housing market. It may have (probably has) changed in the last year. Some areas have changed more than others.

- If you are building, you need to know because your financing will depend on the resale value of your planned house.

- If you are remodeling or adding on, you don't want to add more money than the house will be worth.

- If you are selling, you need to know what is selling and for "how much" and what you need to do to compete with the current market in your area.

Housing markets, in good times and in bad times, vary tremendously within cities as well as within states.

As you know, we are in a "media induced" housing slump, but in some in areas (in every state) you wouldn't know it, thank God!

I am going to spend more time on each of these facets, building, remodeling, and selling, in the next few days (weeks?), but for now, here are two great (FREE) tools to explore the market area you are interested or concerned with. Do your homework, and then we can explore options.

You can use these FREE tools at your leisure and you don't have to talk to anybody either. Great!
1. www.realtor.com
2. www.zillow.com

On Realtor.com, use the "What's your home worth?" under "Tools." You'll need at least one address of any house in any neighborhood you are investigating.



On Zillow.com, you just need a zip code, and then you can "fly around" like you are in a helicopter, peering down on houses and their values. Cool!

Know Your Real Estate Part 2
Know Your Real Estate Part 3