Knowing the Value of Your Home in the San Fernando Valley
How I help homeowners in the San Fernando Valley understand the value of their home so they can prepare for their future.
If you have friends and relatives in other parts of the country, you know how your home’s price in the San Fernando Valley compares to theirs. But do you really know your home’s overall value and how much it’s worth?
There are plenty of free home value calculators available for your use, but as a professional real estate agent who knows communities like Granada Hills, Reseda and Sherman Oaks, I assure you that a variety of factors will influence your home’s value.
Read on to see the impact.
But first, there’s a benefit to knowing your home’s value.
Can you guess what it is?
Why Knowing Your Home’s Value is Important
Properties that have been in a family for thirty or forty years will seem like they’ll be in the family forever. Others of you reading this post may decide to sell within the next five to ten years and move out of Los Angeles and to a place with a lower cost of living.
Your home’s value assists you with personal money management—and here’s how that knowledge benefits you:
· Helps you plan for the future
· Gives you a realistic financial picture
· Guides you in decisions like selling or refinancing
The amount of equity in your home and what the property could sell for on the current market is part of your overall financial portfolio. The money available is a strategic tool for you and your family.
Digital Research is Easy to Do—But …
A few clicks online and you can get a quick approximation.
Sites like Redfin and Zillow are easy to log in and see how they price the value of your home. The result comes from seeing what’s on the market and what has recently sold. The results are fairly accurate but:
· What if you’re looking at selling in two or three years?
· Is there commercial or residential redevelopment taking place in your area?
Can you see how those online listings often don’t reveal the true value?
Now look at other factors to consider.
Factors that Impact Your Home’s Value
As a real estate professional, I know selling and buying a home is like an intersection of two streets: Fact Street and Emotion Avenue.
Facts, like our budget, move us one way—and our emotions pass by, taking us in another direction.
You know how it works.
A husband and wife may decide to downsize after years of raising a family while a buyer could be looking for the dream home in their price range.
Let’s dig deeper than online results and see what influences home and property values beyond recent sales:
· Supply and demand
· New home construction or lack of it
· Quality of Life Topics
o School
o Parks or lack of green space
o Commuting distance
o Restaurants
· A home’s condition
Here’s a fun fact about supply and demand for homes reaching from North Hollywood to Agoura Hills. Prices look like they just keep rising.
In early 2018, Curbed LA ran an article San Fernando Valley home prices hit a record high in 2017. The number of homes on the market dipped and there were only 817 available homes at the end of the year.
The median single-family home prices reached $643,783 in 2017.
Why? The inventory in 2017 was quite low. Compare that figure with 1992 when there were 15,000 homes on the market in the San Fernando Valley. Imagine how a large amount of inventory affects home prices and values.
What happened in 2019?
Curbed LA ran with this headline in July 2019, San Fernando Valley home prices shatter all-time record. Sound familiar?
Median single-family home prices in 2019 soared to $722,000.
Be aware that supply and demand can eventually work in the buyer’s favor at some point in the future.
Now, here’s another factor influencing a home’s value.
When a Home has Sold
A home’s listing price is open to change because of a specific reason that i take seriously but most real estate agents never talk about—negotiating.
So often sellers and buyers have done their due diligence and they think pricing is a lock. The home’s value is settled.
Nope. Here’s why.
Initial negotiations happen when an offer is submitted.
But after the offer is made and accepted, there may be unnoticed issues with the home like a damaged sewer line.
Pricing changes loom.
Subtle, right?
It is. I hear about sellers who had agents represent them and leave thousands behind or buyers who could have gotten a much better price.
There’s a lot that’s already set in pricing once an offer is accepted, but a good real estate professional is going to use negotiating skills to get the best possible result for clients. That’s how I treat my work. High standards are important to me.
Realtors enter the profession from all walks of life and in my early career I refined my negotiating skills through selling advertising at the Chicago Tribune.
My professional enjoyment in real estate is knowing I helped sellers and buyers get the best possible result while being fair with the other party.
A home isn’t just a money transaction, is it?
Like I said, we move through the intersection of facts and emotions.
Now you have a better understanding of what influences a home’s value.
What You can Do
If you want to take a next step as either a seller or buyer, please let me know. I can give you a fair assessment of value if you’re looking to sell.
Want to buy?
Download my free Buyer’s Guide to get a solid understanding of the home buying process.
Get in touch.
If you liked this post, please copy the link and share it so others can benefit.
Bonus Info
#1 Read: Tips for Buying and Selling a Home at the Same Time
#2 Take a deeper dive to appreciate the Valley’s Quality of Life—and impact on your home’s value:
2020 San Fernando Valley Economic Forecast – Jan 15, 2020
Economist Matthew Fienup of the highly respected Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at Cal Lutheran University will give his outlook that’s made specifically for Valley businesses and residents.