1. Tip 1: Get Your Financing Figured Out
2. Tip 2: Use a Real Estate Agent
3. Tip 3: Start Early
4. Tip 4: Move Up in the Down Market
5. Tip 5: Know Your Criteria
6. Tip 6: Understand DOM and $/SF
7. Tip 7: Know Where to Find the Best Deals in the Raleigh Area
8. Tip 8: Understand Short Sales and Foreclosures
9. Tip 9: Understand How to Determine the True Value of a Property
10. Tip 10: Ask Two Key Questions in a Competitive Situation
11. Tip 11: Walk the Neighborhood Before Making an Offer

Tip #9
Tip 9: Understand How to Determine the True Value of a Property

A home is worth whatever a buyer is willing to pay and a seller is willing to accept. The best source to estimate the true market value of a property is an experienced, busy real estate broker, because they are working with buyers and sellers in the current real estate market, and they have access to the best data (from the MLS). They will also correctly adjust for quality and feature differences.

The second best valuation source is an experienced, busy appraiser. They have access to the same data, but they work for banks, not buyers and sellers. In addition, they are constrained by inflexible appraisal rules which do not allow them to consider some relevant information and comparable properties.

Inexperienced real estate brokers and appraisers can be wildly inaccurate. Web sites like Zillow.com calculate market values without the input from human experience or judgment and they use incomplete data from county tax records. The “value” found in the county tax records is not useful, because it is calculated for the purposes of property tax assessment. Further, in the Raleigh area, this number is updated only once every eight years, the last time being January 2008. Up until that time most properties sold for far above tax value. Since then I have seen properties sell for $100,000 above and below tax value. 

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