We've been looking around at what is in the market and what to expect when we finally decide to buy a home...
I've been curious how to determine if an asking price is reasonable. I found our county assessor's website, and you can look up the assessor's values there. But, I've been told that those numbers do not indicate anything about how much a home is really worth. Any thoughts on what exactly those values are?
I recently called about a home, and on the assessor's website (based on 2005 valuse - 2006 comes out marh 31) the home is only valued at $65 per square foot. The owner is asking about $125 per square foot. Her aking price is $130,000 higher than the assessor's value. I don't know what to make of it. I talked to her a little on the phone and it really sounds like there is a lot of sentimental value in her asking price. They've lived there for 20 years, raised all their kids there...etc.
I don't know if you've ever been to zillow.com but on this site you can put in the address of the home you are looking to buy and it will give you the most recent selling price of that home and the homes in the area. It's not 100% accurate, but you can get an idea. That's what we just did with the townhouse we bought. HTH!