How to Find Out How Much Your Home Is Worth

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There are many reasons why you might want to find out how much your home is worth. You could be about to sell, applying for a remortgage, updating your insurance details, or you could simply be curious. All homeowners should have some idea of how much their home is worth in the current market.

Unfortunately, not many people know how to find out how much a home is worth. As the housing market continues to rise and fall in price (mostly rise!), here’s our quick and easy guide so that you can get a much better idea of how much your home is worth.

Looking Nationally

If you just want a general overview of the current housing price trends, then your first stop should be the UK House Price Index, which is compiled by The Land Registry. It’s slow to update, so it’s not always as accurate as you hope, but it can highlight changing house price trends.

Using the House Price Index can be useful for giving you a ballpark figure of how much your home is worth, but it’s never going to be 100% accurate.

Online Calculators

More websites than ever offer a free-to-use house price calculator. You simply enter your address and click the calculate button. This is a quick and easy way to find out how much your home is worth, but like the House Price Index, they’re not going to be 100% accurate.

Because these platforms use automation to assess publicly available information about a property, they calculate prices based on general data rather than specifics. They’ll look at the number of bedrooms, location, square footage and local market activity.

What they can’t take into account is renovations, upgrades, the condition of the property or external factors like traffic volume. As a result, they’re helpful for getting a quick idea of how much your home is worth but shouldn’t be relied upon for precise information.

Local House Prices

One of the most common ways to work out how much your home is worth is to look at other properties for sale in your area. Head to an estate agent’s website and enter your postcode. This will give you a much better idea than national prices.

Even better is if you see a house in your neighbourhood that’s got a For Sale sign outside. Do an online search for that house, and you’ll see how much it’s selling for. The closer the property for sale reflects your home, the closer it will tend to be in terms of the possible value and asking price.

Contact Experts 

All of the above methods for working out how much your home is worth are great for getting some kind of estimate, whether you’re selling your home or even if you’re selling an investment property. If you want to know with more certainty (it’s not an exact science so you can never be completely certain), you should think about enlisting expert help. There are a few options here:

Estate Agents

Local estate agents are always a good idea to contact if you’re planning to sell your home and you don’t know how much it’s worth. Your local estate agent will carry out a valuation for free in most cases. For an even broader view of your home’s value, ask a few different estate agents to provide a valuation.

Chartered Surveyor

A professional chartered surveyor will be able to provide you with a non-biased and impartial expert valuation of your home.

Ensure that your chartered surveyor is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). You may well have to pay at least a few hundred pounds for this professional valuation, but arguably it’s going to be the most accurate when it comes to finding out how much your home is worth.

Stay Aware of Local Developments

If you’re not in a hurry to sell your home, it’s worth keeping up to date with any local planning developments that are in the pipeline. Lots of external factors can play a big part in your home’s value.

If a new primary school is going to be built next year, or a transport hub that will make travel easier, or a new local supermarket, these may all increase the value of your home. Knowing in advance that changes are coming makes it much easier to identify the best time to sell. Before you know it, you’ll be moving into the exchange and completion stage of the sale!

It’s Essential to Be Accurate with House Prices

Whatever your reasons for getting your house valued, it’s vital that you aim for accuracy. While the free services available can give you some idea of how much your home is worth, they will rarely be accurate.

Get your valuation done by an expert, and you’ll find out exactly how much your home is worth.

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