Free Home Value Estimator

How to find out what your home is worth

There are four reliable ways to figure out your home's value, and they trade off speed, cost, and accuracy. The smartest approach is usually to stack them: start free and instant, then add precision as the stakes rise. Here's how they compare.

For curiosity or planning, the estimator above is plenty. If you're about to list, refinance, or settle an estate, move down the list toward a CMA or appraisal. We break the differences down further in what a CMA is and how appraisals actually work.

What actually determines your home's value

Most of a home's value comes down to a handful of factors. Knowing which ones you can change — and which you can't — tells you where attention and money are worth spending.

• Location. The single biggest driver. School district, commute, walkability, and the street itself set a ceiling you can't renovate past.
• Size & usable space. Square footage matters, but so does layout. A well-flowing 1,800 sq ft can beat an awkward 2,200.
• Condition & age. Move-in-ready commands a premium; visible deferred maintenance gets mentally tallied — and penalized — by buyers.
• Beds & baths. The count, and especially the bath count, shifts which buyers can even consider the home.
• The local market. Interest rates and inventory can swing values several percent in a year without you touching a thing.

We go deeper in the 8 factors that determine home value.

How home value estimators work (and where they fall short)

Every online estimate — ours included — does a version of the same thing: it takes a few facts about your home and compares them to what similar homes are worth. The fancy term is an automated valuation model (AVM), but at heart it's simple arithmetic: local price per square foot × your square footage, adjusted for what makes your home better or worse than average.

What the estimate is good at

• Orientation. Getting you in the right ballpark fast, without a sales call.
• Sensitivity. Showing how much a condition upgrade or extra bathroom could move things.
• Sanity-checking. Catching when an asking price or a tax assessment looks way off.

What it can't see

This is where every automated estimate gets humble. A model doesn't know that your kitchen was gutted last year, that the house backs onto a highway, or that the comparable sale down the street was a distress sale. It can't smell the fresh paint or notice the cracked foundation. The further your home is from "average for the area," the wider the real-world range around any estimate — which is exactly why we show a range, not just a single number. (More on this in how accurate online home value estimates really are.)

How to get a sharper number with comps

If you want to move from "ballpark" to "confident," pulling comparable sales is the highest-value step you can take yourself:

• Find 3–5 recent sales of homes similar in size and condition, sold within the last few months, ideally within a mile.
• Adjust for differences — add for your extra bath, subtract for their renovated kitchen. This is exactly what an appraiser does.
• Account for the trend — values drift with rates and inventory, so a six-month-old comp may already be stale.

Our step-by-step guide to reading comps like an agent walks through each adjustment.

Market value vs. appraised value vs. assessed value

One of the most common sources of confusion is that your home has three different "values," and they rarely match:

• Market value is what a buyer will actually pay — the only one that matters at sale.
• Appraised value is one licensed expert's opinion, used by lenders. A low appraisal can stall a sale or refinance.
• Assessed value is set by your county mostly to calculate property taxes, and is usually the least useful guide to what your home would sell for.

We untangle these in appraisal vs. market value and why assessed value isn't market value.

What to do once you know your number

An estimate is only useful if it leads somewhere. Depending on your goal:

• Thinking of selling? Model the whole plan with our Increase Home Value calculator — start from this estimate and add ROI-positive projects to see your new value. Then dig into 7 pre-sale projects that pay off.
• Refinancing or tapping equity? Your value drives how much you can borrow — work out the numbers with the Home Equity Calculator.
• Just planning ahead? The Home Value pillar guide ties together appraisals, market timing, and the levers that grow value over time. And for fun, see how the extremes compare in our study of the most expensive ZIP codes in America.