Home valuation
What is your home actually worth?
An online estimate is a guess from a distance. It cannot see your kitchen, your view, the work you put in, or the cul-de-sac you back up to. The real number comes from your home, your street, and what buyers near you are paying right now.
Send me the address and I will put real comparable sales behind it, by hand. No pressure, and no obligation to list.
- Prepared by a local agent, not an automated guess
- Built from homes that have actually sold near you
- Yours to keep, whether you list or not
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Why ask a person
An algorithm has never stood in your kitchen.
You have probably already checked one of the big sites for an automated estimate. They are fine for a rough idea, and they are wrong all the time, sometimes by a lot. They cannot tell that you redid the kitchen, that the lot backs to open space, or that the model two doors down looks like yours but sat on a busy road. They average their way to a number and call it close enough.
I do it the way a careful buyer's agent and an appraiser will, because those are the people who decide what your home actually sells for. I look at what has really closed near you, weigh what is genuinely comparable, and adjust for the things that make your home worth more or less than the one down the street. The result is a range you can plan around, with the reasoning shown, not a single mystery figure.
Real comparable sales
The closed sales near you that are genuinely like your home, not a regional average.
Honest adjustments
Up for the updates and the lot, down for the things buyers will discount. Shown, not hidden.
A range you can use
A defensible price band to plan around, with the reasoning you can ask me about.
What you get back
A clear read, not a sales pitch.
When I send your value back, here is what is in it.
A value range for your home, with the comparable sales it is based on.
What is driving it, the features helping your number and the ones holding it back.
A read on your area, how homes like yours are moving right now.
What would help if you did decide to sell, with no obligation to do anything.
Want to understand the number yourself first?
My walkthrough on how pricing really works shows the same comparable-sales logic I use.
What drives the number
The things that move your number.
Two homes with the same square footage on the same street rarely carry the same value. What separates them is a short list of things buyers weigh, mostly without noticing they are doing it. When I read your home, these are the levers I look at, and they are the same ones the buyer's agent across the table will use to argue the other side.
Each driver either pulls your number up or holds it down. The work is to weigh them the way the market does, not the way an owner hopes, so the price you set is one the comps will back up.
Lot and position
The view, the orientation, and what you back to. Open space or a quiet interior lot reads far better than a busy road or a hard slope, and a flat, usable yard counts for more than one that cannot be used.
Updates buyers pay for
Kitchens, baths, flooring, and the big systems move a number. Finishes chosen to personal taste usually do not. Buyers pay for what is expensive to change and shrug at what they plan to redo anyway.
Product type and floor plan
Single-story or two-story, where the beds and baths sit, whether the primary is on the main floor, how many garage bays. Two homes of equal size can live completely differently, and buyers price the layout they want.
Condition tier
Buyers sort homes quickly into move-in ready, dated but clean, and needs work, and they price each tier on its own. Where yours lands on that ladder can matter as much as its size or its address.
Tends to lift the number
- An updated, or simply clean and current, kitchen and baths
- A usable lot: a view, open space behind you, a flat yard
- Newer big-ticket systems: roof, HVAC, windows, water heater
- A layout buyers are asking for, like main-floor living
- Finished, permitted square footage that counts as living space
Tends to weigh on it
- Deferred maintenance a buyer can see or smell
- A busy road, a hard backing, or a slope that limits the yard
- Bold, personal finishes the next owner will plan to redo
- Work done without permits, including some finished basements
- An aging systems picture, even if everything still runs
These drivers are not weighted the same across Utah, and that is where local reading matters. In the south, around St. George, Cedar City, and the Washington County towns, a red-rock view and a water-wise desert yard carry weight that a thirsty lawn does not, and outdoor living that holds up in the heat is part of the draw. Along the Wasatch Front up north, finished basement square footage is part of how homes are compared, so a fully finished lower level can shift where your home sits against its comps in a way it might not down south. I weigh each driver the way buyers in your own market do, because they are the ones setting the price.
The method
How I build the range, step by step.
A value is only as good as the work behind it. None of this is a secret, and every step is something you can ask me to show you. If you want the fuller picture of how I work, it is laid out there.
Pull the right comparable sales
I start with homes that have closed recently and near you, then narrow to the ones truly like yours in size, age, style, condition, and lot. Recency and distance carry the most weight, because the market moves and neighborhoods differ block to block. A sale from last month two streets over usually tells me more than a sale from last year across town.
Adjust for the differences
No two homes are identical, so I adjust each comp toward yours: up when your home has something the comp lacked, like an extra bath, the better lot, or the newer roof, and down when the comp had the edge. Those adjustments are where the judgment lives, and I would rather show you the reasoning than hand you a figure and ask you to trust it.
Test it against what is for sale now
Closed sales tell me what buyers have already paid. The homes listed today tell me what yours will stand next to. If a few similar homes are on the market right now, that competition shapes where yours should land, so I read the active list alongside the sold one instead of leaning on either alone.
Land on a range, not a single number
Every market has a spread, so the straight answer is a band with a reason for each edge, not a figure with false precision. The range is not indecision. It is the room to price with intent once we know your timing and what you are trying to do.
Where the automated estimates struggle
The big-site models lean on volume and clean, similar comps, so they get shaky exactly where Utah gets interesting: thin rural markets where few homes trade, view lots a model cannot see, acreage and outbuildings it has no way to weigh, and finished basements it often miscounts. Those are the homes where a read done by hand is worth the most, and around here they are common.
Even if you are not moving yet
Not selling for a year? Still worth knowing.
A value is not only for people about to list. A current read is a planning tool, and plenty of the people I send one to are a year or more out from any move. Here is what it is good for long before a sign goes in the yard.
An equity read for timing
What your home would likely bring, set against what you still owe, is the number behind almost every move decision. The equity-position calculator lets you run that read yourself between now and a future move.
Which projects earn their keep
With a year of runway, you have time to do the few things that tend to pay back before a sale and skip the ones that do not. My walkthrough on preparing your home sorts one from the other.
Tracking against the market
Values drift with the market and with your own work on the home. A read today is a baseline; refreshing it later shows which way your equity has moved, which beats guessing from headlines.
If a move is on the horizon and you are weighing whether to go now or hold, the sell-now-or-wait calculator is built for that exact question, and the seller net sheet turns a value into what you would likely walk away with after the costs of selling. Send me the address whenever you want a fresh read, and I will treat a planning question the same as a listing one.
Local valuation pages
Your city prices its own way.
A valuation is only as local as the person reading the comps. In Southern Utah, where I live and work, I have written a page for each city I serve in person, covering what actually moves a number there and where the automated estimates go wrong. If your home is in one of these cities, start on its page.
St. George
The biggest market in the south, where the same square footage can price very differently by area.
Washington City
Fast growth and heavy new construction make the resale read here its own skill.
Hurricane
Where zoning and short-term rental rules can swing a value more than the finishes do.
Ivins
Red-rock views and one-of-a-kind homes that automated models genuinely cannot price.
Santa Clara
A small city with two distinct markets, the historic old town and the newer bench above it.
Cedar City
My home base, where elevation, basements, and the university shape what buyers pay.
Enoch
Larger lots and animal property, the exact homes where model estimates miss the most.
Everywhere else in Utah
Send the address through the form above and I will connect you with a trusted local partner agent.
Valuation pages by region
Outside Southern Utah a partner agent who works your area pulls the closed sales and I review the range. Each region has its own page.
Good to know
Before you send the address.
I start with the homes near you that have actually sold recently, the ones most similar to yours in size, age, condition, and location. Then I adjust for what makes your home different, up for the things buyers pay more for and down for the things they do not. That comparable-sales read is how an appraiser and a serious buyer's agent will look at your home too, so it is the number that holds up in the real world rather than a guess from a distance.
Yes. I prepare it at no cost and with no obligation. I do it because some of the people I help with a value end up listing with me, and many do not, and that is genuinely fine. You keep the analysis either way and you are never charged for it.
An appraisal is a formal opinion of value from a licensed appraiser, and in most financed purchases the buyer's lender orders one after you are under contract. What I prepare is a comparative market analysis: the same comparable-sales logic, applied before you list, so you can plan and price with it. It is not an appraisal and does not replace one. Because both start from the same closed sales, I read the comps the way an appraiser will, and I show you that reasoning rather than just a number.
Then you will have the why behind it, comp by comp, which is worth more than a flattering guess. Some of the gap may be fixable, condition and presentation often are, and some of it, like the lot or the location, is not. From there the options are yours: put targeted work in, adjust your timing, or decide the number still works for your plans. What I will not do is inflate a value to win a listing, because a price the comps cannot support gets tested the moment buyers compare your home against everything else for sale.
No. I will send you the value and answer your questions, and then the decision is yours on your own timeline. List now, list later, or just keep the information for planning. I would rather you remember the read as honest and useful than feel chased, because that is how people come back when they are ready.
Yes. In Iron, Washington, Kane, Garfield, and Beaver counties I prepare it myself. Anywhere else in Utah, I connect you with a partner agent I trust in your area who pulls the local numbers, and I stay involved. You are always free to choose any agent you wish.
It is a snapshot of your market on the day I prepare it, built from the most recent closed sales near you. Values drift with the seasons and with what is selling around you, so if you are listing soon, I refresh the analysis right before we set a price. If you are planning further out, ask again after a major project or when your timeline firms up, and I will update it. A refresh is at no cost too.