What Your Home Is Actually Worth
A real number for your house, from someone who has been inside the ones it will be compared to.
Why the number on the internet is not your number
An online estimate is a national model making a guess about a local street. It works reasonably well in a subdivision where four hundred houses were built from the same three plans. It works poorly here, and on the coast it can be wrong by a sum of money that would change your plans.
The model does not know that your house backs onto conservation land that can never be built on. It does not know the septic was replaced four years ago, or that it was not. It does not know that the two sales it leaned on were both on the wrong side of Route 6, or that one of them included a deeded mooring and yours does not.
On this coast the things that move a price hardest are the things a model cannot see. Water frontage against water view against water access. Flood zone and elevation. Whether a lot is buildable, and whether the one next door is. Dock, mooring or beach rights, and whether they transfer. Year-round versus seasonal construction. A half mile can be six figures, and no algorithm has walked that half mile.
Request your home valuation
What I give you instead
A written comparative market analysis, which is a real document rather than a number in an email.
- What has actually closed near you recently, and why each one is or is not a fair comparison to your house.
- What is competing with you right now. A buyer looking at your house is looking at three others the same weekend, and those three set your price as much as any past sale does.
- What did not sell, and why. This is the part almost nobody shows you, and it is often the most useful page in the whole analysis. Expired and withdrawn listings tell you exactly where the ceiling is.
- Where I would price you, and the reasoning. Not a range wide enough to be unfalsifiable. A number, and the argument for it.
- What would move that number, and what it would cost to do. Sometimes the answer is nothing, and I will say so.
I hold the Pricing Strategy Advisor designation from the National Association of REALTORS, which is the credential specifically about this. On a coast where the comparables are this uneven, pricing is less a formula than a judgment, and judgment is worth being trained in.
What it costs and what it commits you to
It is free, and it commits you to nothing at all.
Not to listing with me. Not to listing with anybody. Not to selling this year. A good number of the valuations I do are for people who are thinking about a move in two or three years and want to know where they stand, and that is a completely reasonable use of my time.
I would rather you had an accurate picture and did nothing with it for three years than an inaccurate one you acted on next month.
How it works
- You get in touch, and we have a short conversation about the house and about what you are considering. That second part matters, because a valuation for a sale next spring and a valuation for an estate are different documents.
- I walk the house. This is not optional and it is why the number is worth something. Half an hour to an hour, and you do not need to tidy for me.
- I do the work, which takes a few days, because pulling the right comparables and reading the expired listings properly is not something to rush.
- We sit down with it. I walk you through the reasoning, you ask whatever you want, and you keep the document.
Then nothing happens unless you want it to. I do not follow up relentlessly, and I will not hand your details to anyone.
If the number is not what you hoped
Sometimes it is not, and I will tell you anyway.
An agent who tells you a high number to win your listing has not done you a favor. They have bought a few weeks of your goodwill with a price that the market will correct in public, on your listing, while the days on market climb where every buyer and every agent can see them. Overpriced homes do not sell high and slow. They sell low and slow, because the first three weeks of attention are the ones that mattered and they were spent proving the price was wrong.
If your number is lower than you hoped, you have options that are worth talking about: waiting, preparing differently, adjusting what you buy next, or a different route to market entirely. All of those are better conversations to have before you list than after.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the home valuation really free?
Yes, and there is no obligation attached to it. You are not committing to list with me, to list at all, or to sell this year. Plenty of the valuations I do are for people planning a move two or three years out who want to know where they stand.
How is this different from a Zillow or Redfin estimate?
The websites run national models off public records and past sales. A model like that cannot see a septic replacement, a conservation buffer, a flood zone line, or whether a mooring transfers with the property. On the South Coast and Cape Cod those details routinely move a price by a large amount, so a model that cannot see them is guessing on the part that matters most.
Do you have to come inside the house?
Yes, and that is the point. A valuation done from the street or from a spreadsheet is the same guess the websites are making. Condition, layout, updates, light and outlook are most of what separates two houses that look identical on paper. It takes half an hour to an hour, and you do not need to tidy.
How long does it take to get the valuation?
A few days after I have walked the house. Pulling the right comparables and reading the expired and withdrawn listings properly takes time, and rushing that part is how you get a number that looks confident and is wrong.
Will you pressure me to list after the valuation?
No. I will give you the document, walk you through the reasoning, answer your questions, and then leave it with you. I do not chase, and your details do not go anywhere.
What if I owe more than the house is worth?
Then that is worth knowing now rather than later, and there are more routes through it than most people expect. It is a conversation to have privately and without judgment, and it is one I have had before.
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Ready to make your move with Susan Gorden Ryan?