The Best Home Value Estimator Website for California
TABLE OF CONTENTS (skip ahead)
↳ The Homepie Home Value Estimator
↳ How to Use the Home Value Estimator
↳ How the Home Value Estimator Can Help California Home Sellers
↳ What is Homepie?
↳ What Homepie Offers Home Sellers
↳ How Homepie Saves California Home Sellers 6%
↳ Is the Homepie Home Value Estimator the Right Tool for Your California Home?
↳ Home Valuation FAQs
TABLE OF CONTENTS (expand)
↳ The Homepie Home Value Estimator
↳ How to Use the Home Value Estimator
↳ How the Home Value Estimator Can Help California Home Sellers
↳ What is Homepie?
↳ What Homepie Offers Home Sellers
↳ How Homepie Saves California Home Sellers 6%
↳ Is the Homepie Home Value Estimator the Right Tool for Your California Home?
↳ Home Valuation FAQs
by Homepie | Published March 10, 2021 | 7 Minutes
Selling your home starts with setting the right price. But how can you do that if you plan to sell it without using a real estate agent?
The answer: a home value estimator.
If that’s what you’re looking for—and you should be—you’ve come to the right place. The Homepie Home Value Estimator will not only give you an estimate of value, but also an estimated value range. That will give you the power to set your home’s sale price at a level that will work for you, but also at which it’s likely to sell.
And, along with the Home Value Estimator, Homepie provides a comprehensive suite of tools and information to fully equip you to sell your home yourself.
That’s important because you’ll give up to 6% of the sale price if you choose to sell through a real estate agent instead.
With Homepie there’s no need to rely on a real estate agent, or pay the 6% commission.
The Best Home Value Estimator
Having an accurate estimate of the value of your home is the first critical step in the home selling process. You’ll get that—free of charge—using the Homepie Home Value Estimator.
The Homepie Home Value Estimator is a real-time pricing tool that gives home sellers the most up-to-date value on their homes.
The tool uses data provided by DataTree. That’s the same pricing engine real estate agents get their data from. But unlike real estate agents, the Homepie Home Value Estimator is a truly free provider of your home’s value. By contrast, when a real estate agent gets involved, there’s usually a commission attached.
How to Use the Home Value Estimator
To use the tool, you simply need to go to the Homepie Home Value Estimator page. Getting your home’s value is an easy, four-step process that can be completed in under 60 seconds.
You’ll start the process by entering your address:
The next three screens will ask for your name, email address, and phone number. Once completed, you’ll receive your Automated Valuation Report instantly:
Notice that, in addition to the estimated value, you’re also given an estimated range.
That’s because the final sale price of any property won’t be determined until the home is sold. The estimated range will give you high and low values. You can choose the listing price you want, based on how quickly you want to sell the home.
For example, if you want the highest sale price, you can choose the upper end of the estimated range. But if you’re primarily interested in a quick sale, you’ll price the property closer to the lower end. There’s even a strategy to get many more offers to bid up the price using a lower asking price!
That’s one of the major advantages of the Homepie Home Value Estimator. It puts you in control over the pricing of your home by giving you both a likely value and a range. You can price your home at any point within the range based on your personal needs and preferences.
How the Home Value Estimator Can Help California Home Sellers
Pricing your home right is the key to a successful sale. That’s true whether you list your home with a real estate agent, or especially if you plan to sell it yourself
Price your home too high, and it’ll sit on the market for months. You may not even get any offers—ouch!
That’s not a harmless situation, either. A property that sits on the market too long can easily be perceived as “damaged goods.” While you don’t want to give the property away in favor of making a quick sale, pricing it above market is a guaranteed way to not sell your home.
It may even be possible to sell your home at a higher price with a lower initial asking price. In today’s market, a more attractively priced home is likely to receive more offers, ultimately resulting in a higher final sale price than you might get with a higher asking price.
The key to selling your home successfully is to find the right balance that enables you to sell your home quickly, but without sacrificing equity.
The Homepie Home Value Estimator will help you do just that. Providing both a likely sale price and a high/low range puts you in control of achieving that balance. But you’ll be able to do that as an educated home seller, rather than relying on guesswork.
What is Homepie?
Homepie is a free online marketplace where sellers can list their homes for sale, and buyers can browse through listings and submit offers on properties they like. Homepie features a hybrid model using a combination of artificial intelligence and live help (through a personal concierge), establishing itself as the lowest cost/highest service option available to home sellers in the California real estate market.
The platform is specifically designed for home sellers who prefer to sell their home themselves and eliminate the 6% real estate commission. Since Homepie is a licenced real estate broker, and a listing contract is signed if they choose MLS for marketing, but it is an MLS-only contract. That eliminates the need for paying a real estate commission.
The platform has all the tools necessary for buyers and sellers to navigate the sale process. That includes everything from sellers listing their homes for sale, straight through to final closing.
Buyers are able to communicate directly with sellers. This includes arranging showings, conducting negotiations—through the Homepie negotiation tool—and making offers.
When an agreement is reached on a sale, sellers and buyers can prepare a legal real estate purchase contract automatically through the site.
A Transaction Coordinator is available to handle the details
Home sellers can choose to work with a transaction coordinator, whose services will be available at a very low, flat fee. The coordinator will handle the details of the sale. That includes opening an escrow account, providing legal disclosures, preparing paperwork for digital signatures, ordering required reports, and arranging any necessary inspections.
The coordinator will also keep the process moving forward, by keeping track of contract deadlines, ensuring all necessary documents are submitted on time, and coordinating sale and closing details with all parties involved.
By the time the sale is complete, the home seller will have enjoyed all the benefits of having a real estate agent, but without the 6% commission.
What Homepie Offers Home Sellers
Homepie completely eliminates the need for a real estate agent by providing everything you’ll need to sell your home yourself:
- List your home for sale on the platform in a matter of minutes, completely free!
- Promote your property sale through a low fee premium service on more than 100 real estate websites, including Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com and the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).
- Rental on a for-sale sign available.
- Availability of a Smart Keybox rental, to make sure only intended parties access your home when you’re not available.
- Identity verification of perspective buyers to be sure they are who they claim to be.
- Communication and negotiations with perspective buyers through the platform.
- Real estate purchase agreement created automatically after all terms of negotiation are agreed to by all parties, then signed automatically right through the platform service. , completely free. Buyers complete the agreement using a simple Q&A contract generator.
- A Homepie Concierge will be available to provide support throughout the process, to help you with any questions or issues that come up.
- Third-party service providers. This will give you access to independent providers for escrow, title, transaction coordination services, and all other services you will need throughout the transaction, so you won’t have to search the internet for help..
- Get pre-approved for a mortgage on your next home, making you a stronger buyer.
The Homepie website also contains a wealth of information to educate you on every aspect of the home selling process.
A big part of that process is accomplished with the Home Value Estimator
How Homepie Saves California Home Sellers 6%
This is the bottom line of the service proposition offered by Homepie. The 6% sales commission may be the standard charge in the California real estate market, but it adds up to a lot of money. The property sellers will walk away from the closing table with less money, and a lot less money at that!
With the average price of a home in California at nearly $750,000, the 6% real estate commission translates into $45,000. That’s $45,000 out of your bottom line. And it’s even worse than it seems.
Consider this. Let’s say you sell your home for $750,000, but you also have a $500,000 deed of trust to pay off. That means your net equity in the property—the most you can walk away from the closing table with—is $250,000. That’s a lot less than $750,000.
But if you list your home with a real estate agent, the 6% commission—$45,000—will be deducted from your $250,000 in equity. That means you’ll walk away from the sale with just $205,000, not $250,000.
$45,000 is bad enough when it’s coming out of $750,000. But it’s even worse when it’s being paid out of your equity. That’s why it’s so important to take advantage of the option to sell your home without a real estate agent.
Homepie will provide you with that option, without sacrificing the valuable services real estate agents bring to the home selling table.
Is the Homepie Home Value Estimator the Right Tool for Your California Home?
Six percent is far too high a price to pay to sell your home. Remember, though the 6% is based on your sale price, it will be paid out of your equity.
There’s no need to pay that fee, not when you have a comprehensive home selling service like Homepie at your fingertips.
The process starts by taking advantage of the Homepie Home Value Estimator. By supplying just four pieces of information, you’ll have your estimated value and estimated value range in under 60 seconds. And it’s completely free of charge or obligation.
When you see how easy and accurate the estimate is, you’ll want to take advantage of one of the service packages on the platform. Homepie.com is a free home selling marketplace with all the tools you’ll need to sell your home, and for buyers to buy it.
Why pay a real estate agent to do work you can do yourself, armed with the right tools? With the technology of today, and available through Homepie, you’ll have those tools. Technology is changing the way business is done today, including selling a home.
Home Valuation FAQs
How accurate is a home value estimate?
The true value of any home offered for sale is ultimately determined by what a willing buyer is prepared to pay. That number can never be known with absolute certainty until a final offer is made by the buyer and accepted by the seller.
Advanced home value estimates, whether they’re provided by a real estate agent, a licensed appraiser, or an online source like Homepie, are based on sales data in the immediate market area. That sales data is composed of closed sales, with less emphasis on current listings, if any is given at all. Listings represent only what property sellers hope to get, but not a true value.
A surprising amount of information on most homes is available from public records. Computerization has made this possible. This will be especially true if a property has been sold within the past 10 years or so. The data will reflect specific information, like square footage, room count, and even unique features.
You can expect the final sale price to come within a few percentage points of the estimate.
I’m seeing higher prices on listed properties in my area than I’m getting with a home value estimator. Why shouldn’t I set my sales price to match those listings?
While listing prices can provide some guidance on the value estimate of your home, they are not as reliable as you may think.
Home value estimators work with publicly available information on closed sales. Those are the most reliable values because they represent actual prices buyers were willing to pay, not what sellers hope to get.
Also, relying on listing prices tends to be subjective. Sellers often price their homes at the highest listed price in the neighborhood. They may even set the price higher, based on an assumption of having a better home.
That’s a surefire way to overprice your home. Since overpriced homes tend to sit on the market longer, you’ll run the risk of your property being seen as somehow less valuable, not more. And in a worst-case scenario, your home may not sell at all.
Why shouldn’t I just have a local real estate agent provide a valuation on my home?
There are two reasons home sellers should be reluctant to get an estimated valuation from a real estate agent:
- No real estate agent will provide an estimate analysis without the expectation of listing your home, and
- In connection with that expectation, the agent will be motivated to assign a higher value to the home in an attempt to “outbid” other real estate agents competing for your listing.
While it may be encouraging to rely on the real estate agent’s inflated value in pricing your home, the same rule applies—an overpriced property is less likely to sell quickly, or even at all.
Why would a real estate agent want to list an overpriced property that might not sell? They don’t—but they want the listing!
The common strategy is to use a high value estimate to get the listing, then work out the “pricing problem” later. This is usually accomplished by a series of price cuts, until the listing price is lowered to its true value.
By using a home value estimator, you’re essentially separating two important pieces of the home selling process: valuing the property and selling it.
Is the Homepie Home Value Estimator the Right Tool for Your California Home?
Six percent is far too high a price to pay to sell your home. Remember, though the 6% is based on your sale price, it will be paid out of your equity.
There’s no need to pay that fee, not when you have a comprehensive home selling service like Homepie at your fingertips.
The process starts by taking advantage of the Homepie Home Value Estimator. By supplying just four pieces of information, you’ll have your estimated value and estimated value range in under 60 seconds. And it’s completely free of charge or obligation.
When you see how easy and accurate the estimate is, you’ll want to take advantage of the complete service package offered by Homepie. Homepie is a free home selling marketplace with all the tools you’ll need to sell your home, and for buyers to buy it.
Why pay a real estate agent to do work you can do yourself, armed with the right tools? With the technology of today, and available through Homepie, you’ll have those tools. Technology is changing the way business is done today, including selling a home.
Think about it – would you go to blockbuster to rent a movie today? Then way go to a real estate agency to sell your home the “traditional” way?
