Hello, fellow Lancaster Countian! I live 10 minutes from Lititz (Brownstown) and work as a Realtor in Lancaster County. I'm quite familiar with Lititz, and would be delighted to help. NO pressure, NO obligation, just a brief look through your home, and/or at the very least - details over the phone, and I can tell you an estimate of today's market value. I've been a Realtor in Lancaster Co. for 8+ years, and I'm happy to help! One last thought - Zillow really is not very accurate at all in our particular market...probably more so in more urban areas?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Jennifer King, RE/MAX Assoc. of Lancaster

Contact me anytime. 717-581-4919(office) or via my website below

We sure have a winner here! Sylvia, you've turned into a super sleuth!

Hello Sara:

Since you posted similar responses in a short period of time with the same answers, so I got curious.

I noticed that you posted 7 answers and 2 questions, and each one mentioned HouseFront.com, and nothing else (meaning no other contents, really). One even kindly provided a number to text message to HouseFront.com

So I am kind of curious as I would love to have somebody who is extremely loyal to me, so I wonder if you have bought a house through them or are you just check out all the house values and decided you like HouseFront that much?

I am curious because HouseFront is the mobile access of HouseValues.com, which i believe is a paid for lead generation service for Realtors.

I would think you might just want to mention that HouseValues.com is a great site to get estimated house prices if all you want to mention is how accurate the service is instead pointing consumers to a text messaging service.

Please let me know if I am missing something here?

John...since the question is a one liner, here is another thought. Have you tried Homevalues.com for a value of your property? The value will be prepared by a Realtor via the internet. The upshot and downshot have been covered about zillow so I won't even go there. You can always call a local Realtor to help you establish a value. Good luck.

Hi Sylvia:
Thanks for disagreeing so sweetly. I do agree with you that Zillow isn't the best for est'g true value - and really anyone wanting a complete and thorough market analysis of the value of their home should contact an agent familiar with their area... this has been our mantra all along the way.

However, John's question was a one liner - looks like he's only testing the waters here. Please forgive my facetious answer. I was basically following up on Deborah's answer - she referenced both Zillow and the need for a REALTOR's thorough analysis - I should have used the same type of disclaimer: it was just redundant at that point.

For the curiousity seeker - Zillow is a "fun" tool to work with - and in some instances can give you a great estimate on your home. One point worth noting - Zillow does provide recent home sale prices which is the basis for a good CMA.

So - Mr. John - to sum it all up; if you are seeking this information as a guide to help you decide whether you should place your home on the market - you should get the assistance of a tried and true realtor - familiar with your particualr locale.

If on the other hand, you are just curious - check out zillow. There are still many consumers out there who aren't familiar, or have even heard of zillow. It's a fun tool and you can see the satellite image of your neighborhood - (depending on what part of the country you are in).

Just remember that zillow is limited and there is no substitution for a thorough Comparative Market Analysis - if you are attempting to find a "sale" price for your home.

I have to respectfully disagree with Jeannette about using Zillow, Zillow mght have accurately estimate house value for her house, but my experience is not the same.

I first tried Zillow using my home and a couple of neighbor's home to see how accurate Zillow is. It was quite different from what the price should be, and as you probably gussed, I do watch the comparables around my house very closely! I just did one a minute ago on a house somebody wants me to do a CMA on, way off. It seems to me that Zillow takes what has been sold and comes up with a numeric value for the house, but it does not account for any charastics or special features of the house. If there is not enough data to go by, it really skews it. I do expect Zillow to mature and become more accurate as time goes by, the program becomes more sophisticated and there are more data to go by.... and there are more data available, but not today

Enough of Zillow and back to your question. I think first, you shoudl ask for a Realtor's professional assitance. And why wouldn't you as most of us should be very familiar with the the market, the houses sold and are currently available. Also, most of the Realtors offer a free, no obligation market analysis or do a comparable market analysis for potential clients. Yes, we will try to sell you our services as that is our job, but there is no obligation from your part to use them, only if you think the service will be valuable to you after the presentation. So, take advantage of that.

If you are just, for some reason, really don't want to work with a Realtor - there are great Realtors out there - you should go out and see comparable houses that are close by and are either sold or on market and evaluate how the house compares to yours - location, amendities, age, conditon, current market ...etc and hopefully come up with a reliable estimate of your home.

Good luck.

Okay, I'm game. Your question really got my attention: short sweet and to the point. But since I don't have much to go on - how about you go to zillow and do a quick analysis. Before I became licensed I did one on my home; & it came pretty close to what my agent came up with...

You can fnd online services that will provide you estimates of value. Each of these will provide disclaimers that you should not rely upon it a source for selling your home and that there is a wide margin of error.

I have seen the public use these and found that Realtor CMAs can often widely vary from the online computer results. So, I caution you not to get locked in to thinking that the following is a "right" answer.

For curiosoity sake, try Zillow.com
For accurate market conditions and a pricing opinion that reflects the local market, contact a Realtor.

The estimated value of your home would depend on many things, number of bedrooms, sq/ft, location, yard, etc. and most importantly what other homes in your neighborhood have sold for in recent months.

Any realtor in your area should be happy to do a comparative market anaylsis for you. Ask friends or relatives for a referral and give that person a call. You don't have to be ready to put your home on the market to ask for that information.

John,
We're going to need specifics if you'd like us to help you out. Go into as much detail as possible (you're anonymous here) and re-post your question. Thanks!