Get value from your home valuation

Valuing your home by a professional usually costs between $300-$500 and can be done for a number of reasons.

The most prominent of these are to secure financing with a lender, dealing with a deceased estate, resolving a legal dispute, or just for general interest.

Preparing for a property valuation is different to that done for an appraisal, as the latter is usually done by a real estate agent (often at no cost) and is a less systematic valuation.

VIEW.com.au looks at the difference between a property valuation and an appraisal.

Ever had a letter dropped in your letterbox from a local real estate agent offering a free appraisal?

This is usually a free service offered by agents as both a branding exercise (getting their name out in the community) and building potential client lists.

A property appraisal by an agent will consider the general attributes of your home (bedrooms, bathrooms), its general
condition, location, obvious selling features and the local market sales history to give you a close estimate of the value of the home.

An agent has strong knowledge of sales trends in your local area, so can often provide very realistic estimates for the value of your home.

However, an agent has an incentive to  create business through this practice, so there is the temptation for some agents to be overly-optimistic in your property appraisal results.

A property valuation is done by a qualified property valuer, who considers a larger range of factors in the process of calculating the value of your home.