The Key to Finding Your Home's Value

There are many great North Central New Jersey area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (973) 214-0691 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

The most important thing every seller asks is, "What is my home worth?" There isn't really a simply answer to that - the value of your home depends on the area, condition, and many other things. So how do you find out how much your home is worth? Use a 5-point pricing strategy to do just that:

1. Understand market conditions: Market conditions have a huge impact on your home's value. They are often specific to your town and, more often, the specific neighborhood you live in.
2. Know your Zestimate: Zestimates are pretty inaccurate, but if you're looking to sell your home, you should have an idea of what it is. Buyers will almost surely know how Zillow values your home.
3. Understand your tax assessment: Know your tax assessment and how it fits with other homes on the market that have sold recently. Use it to figure out what it will equate to in the sale of your home. 
4. Understand your price band: Check and see how much activity is going on in your price range. What's the average list-to-sale ratio of homes in your price band? What do their tax assessments look like? Know what has sold in the last year to gain an understanding of how your home compares with those sales. These are known as comparables.
5. Understand active homes in your price band: Go through and see where your house would rank among other active homes in your price bracket. The sum total of all the above knowledge should give you an idea of where your home fits in.

This information can be very difficult to come by on your own. A real estate professional can help you dig up that hard to find information so you can get a good idea of the true value of your home.

Even if you don't plan on selling soon, we would be more than happy to help you out. Simply give us a call or shoot us an email so we can determine if it makes sense to put your home on the market!

On location at Top Rated Millburn High School

There are many great North Central New Jersey area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (973) 214-0691 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Many people who are moving to the township of Millburn-Short Hills are coming for the great schools. Millburn High School is a perfect example. The graduating class of 2014 saw 29 of its students go to Ivy League schools - that's 7% of the 409 kids that graduated earlier this year! While that alone says a lot about the quality education available here, there is more: 25% of this year's graduating class went to the top 25 colleges and universities in the nation. There aren't many high schools in the nation that can say that.

People often move here with younger children because the grade schools and middle schools are also elite. You can rest assured that, upon leaving the district, your kids will be well prepared to get a great college education. To go along with the invaluable education opportunities here in Millburn, it is also a very short commute to Manhattan. With all these benefits, it would be tough to find a community that could serve you better!

If you are interested in the area and would like more information, don't hesitate to call or email me. I would love to help you make the move to this lovely little township.

Consult with Me to Find Solutions to Your Toughest Real Estate Questions

There are many great North Central New Jersey area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (973) 214-0691 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Should I List my Current Home or Buy a Home First?

This is a question I have been receiving from multiple clients lately. It's also a tough one to answer because it depends a lot on your financial and personal situations in life. However, I am glad to clear some things up for you here.

This used to be an easy problem to tackle because people utilized bridge loans, but they are no longer very popular anymore. However, this is a difficult question because this is a tough market to buy in, so people get concerned when they list their home and don't know where they will be living next.

On the other hand, it is difficult for most people to feel comfortable buying a home before selling their own. It's already hard enough to get one mortgage, but getting two mortgages at the same time is very risky if your finances are not straightened out.

So, if you're planning to buy and you already own a home, there is one question you need to have a crystal-clear direction on from your mortgage broker. That question is: Will a mortgage broker give you a pre-approval that says it is not contingent on the sale of your home?

Home sellers do not want to see that the purchase of their property will be contingent upon you selling your current home. It is very likely that sellers will not want to wait around for you to sell your property in order to buy their own.

So, as you can see, this is actually a very delicate situation that requires a lot of planning and expertise. Everyone will have different parameters in a situation such as this, so it would be best for me to sit down and have a conversation about how to best tackle this from your own unique perspective.

I would love to organize a time for a thorough consultation with you where we can analyze the upsides and downsides of going through with this type of decision. Usually the answer will appear after a little bit of deliberation and research into your current financials and your future plans.

So, if you have any interest in discussing this or if you would like to discuss our local market here in Summit, then please give me a call and I would be glad to answer any and all of your questions.

I can be reached at (973) 214-0691 or email me at ACutAbove@ShannonAronson.com