to buy mortgage insurance.
“Assessed value” is the amount local or state government has declared for a specific property and frequently differs from market value or appraisal value. This assessed value is used as the basis for if a property tax is levied and, if so, how much that tax will be. The assessed value of real property is not necessarily equal to the property’s market value: approximately 60% of U.S. properties are assessed higher than their current value, though this does not reflect what the homes actually sell for.
WHAT IS YOUR INHERITED H UR INHERITED HOME WORTH?
The first step in selling your inherited property, which may be in a market with which you are not familiar, is knowing the difference between value, worth, and price. Let’s examine the determining factors at work. Understanding those factors allows them to be leveraged. There are several ways a home’s value is derived:
ONLINE HOME VALUATION
A simple place to start determining the market value of a house is at your computer. There are any number of free online tools which will provide an estimate of your home’s current value using a comprehensive database of recent comparable home sales in your area. Note that the assessment is based on available data with no guarantee of accuracy and often using an algorithm that simply averages comparable sales in the geographic area. These are quick and easy, but do not answer questions regarding factors like location and current local trends. Be aware that in practice, the prices arrived at might be highly inaccurate and should be treated as a ballpark estimate at best. For example, a home in Ohio was put into one such system, Redfin (go to www.redfin.com and hover over the “Sell”
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