Are online home appraisals accurate?
“I have seen websites where I can get an online home appraisal for the value of my house. I’m skeptical of this, because I don’t see how it could give accurate results. How do these online appraisal sites work, and are they accurate enough to make them worth using?” You’re right to be skeptical of these websites. I’ll tell you why in a moment. But first, let me answer the “how” question you asked. Most of these sites claim to have fancy formulas that will process all sorts of data, to give you an instant online home appraisal for your property. But in reality, there’s only one type of data that can be used for this purpose — the prices of homes recently sold in the area. These websites are good for compiling data on recent sales, and this kind of information can certainly be useful. It’s easy to provide an accurate picture of home sales, because this is a known quantity. When a house gets sold, the sale price is recorded by the county. These websites simply use public data to display
