What price could you sell your home for? That number means everything to homeowners, whether they are considering selling, or calibrating a remodeling budget. ForSaleByOwner.com now offers a new pricing tool that enables homeowners to fine-tune pricing factors to get the closest possible apples-to-apples comparison when pricing their home. 

The ForSaleByOwner.com Real-Time Home Value Estimator gives homeowners a way to draw on the same sources used by licensed appraisers, for $40 — a tenth of the cost of a full appraisal. The Real-Time Home Value Estimator is distinct from other options available to consumers because it includes data about houses currently under contract, as well as data about recently sold homes. Homeowners need both types of data to correctly price their homes in today’s volatile housing market.  Other automated valuation tools rely only on publicly recorded data, which quickly becomes outdated and leaves homeowners without essential pricing comparisons. With the ForSaleByOwner.com Real-Time Home Value Estimator, consumers will no longer be vulnerable to ‘comparable market valuations,’ which are geared to reel in listings by real estate agents. 

“Traditionally, estimating market value is an art, but our new Real-Time Home Value Estimator tool gets as close to science as possible,” said Eddie Tyner, general manager of ForSaleByOwner.com. “For only $40, homeowners can get the information they need to decide if they can afford to sell, and if so, for how much. This is also a powerful tool for buyers, who can quickly get a valuation snapshot that position them to make a strong offer likely to be accepted.”

The ForSaleByOwner.com Real-Time Home Value  Estimator puts all the tools used by professionals to estimate market value into consumers’ hands.  Key elements of the Real-Time Home Value  Estimator include:

• The tool presents only the most relevant comparable properties
• Customers can eliminate foreclosures and distress sales from the equation
• For many major markets, ‘pending sale’ data from local multiple listing services is included – the most relevant data for estimating current value
• Customers can adjust value according to ‘soft factors’ such as neighborhood popularity, quality of school district, and property amenities highly valued by locals
• The estimator provides graphs that illustrate the relationship between asking price and selling time 

The ForSaleByOwner.com Real-Time Home Value Estimator is available to all consumers at http://www.forsalebyowner.com/pricing_report/enterAddress.

About ForSaleByOwner.com
ForSaleByOwner.com is the nation’s largest and most robust “by owner” real estate website. In 2010 alone, ForSaleByOwner.com facilitated sales of $1.8 billion worth of residential real estate, enabling homeowners to keep at least $72 million* in home equity for themselves. 

Since 1999, ForSaleByOwner.com has saved home sellers more than one billion dollars by coaching and equipping them with information, tools and services that enable them to buy and sell houses directly.

By selling directly, homeowners can recoup more of their home equity by controlling transaction fees. The company charges $89 to $689 for its wide range of advertising, listing services and related information and tools. A homeowner selling a $300,000 home through a full service real estate agent would lose $18,000 in equity, based on the traditional 6% commission.

ForSaleByOwner.com was acquired in 2006 by Tribune Digital, a division of Tribune Companies, and is based in Chicago.

*Based on some home sellers paying a 2% commission to the agent representing the buyers of their homes. The traditional real estate commission is 6%.