After a wild 45% rise in existing home prices between 2020 and 2022, higher mortgage interest rates have begun to rebalance the market. With certain markets expected to decline through 2023, many people are curious to know: “What’s my home worth today?” Free online home value estimators can give you an idea of what your house might sell for or how much home equity you’ve banked in a gangbusters housing market. Many lenders and real estate companies have an automated valuation model (AVM) on their website where you can input your address to get a result. None of these tools are a substitute for a formal appraisal or the in-person expertise of a real estate agent, but they can be a useful starting point. Most aggregate some combination of county auditor and tax assessor records, user-submitted data, and MLS listings and sales to produce the estimate. You may be curious to know which online home value estimator is the best or which website is most accurate. A home’s square footage, acreage, number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and year built are some of main data points used for calculating value — but each tool may have blind spots where data is limited or only offer coverage of certain market areas. One option is to put your address through a few different tools to see what you get. We queried the eight sites below for their estimate of the same home in the Dunwoody suburb of Atlanta so you can get a sense for what each one provides: We ran an address for a 2,305-square-foot home on a 0.3-acre lot with three-bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths in the Dunwoody suburb of Atlanta through each of the above tools. Now let’s review each tool more in depth. With HomeLight’s tool, you can input your address and the software will analyze millions of real estate transactions, collect details about your property with a short questionnaire, and pull in the most important elements of a comparative market analysis. Users then receive a preliminary estimate of value in under two minutes sent to their email inbox. HomeLight is a real estate technology company that provides an array of services to buyers, sellers, and real estate agents. Through HomeLight, you can connect with a top real estate agent or request a cash offer on your home. In select states, you can also get a home loan or use the company’s “power buying” services to purchase your next home. For a deeper understanding of your home’s value and current market trends, you’ll want to get a comparative market analysis from a local real estate agent. HomeLight provides a list of top-rated agents in the same email that contains your home value estimate, making it easy to take the next step if you so choose. Enter your address and click Get Estimate, and RE/MAX will confirm that it has listed the correct numbers of beds, baths, and square footage for your home. The next screen shows a range of estimated value provided by SmartZip, which has a patented AVM that takes into account a number of variables. RE/MAX is a real estate franchisor with offices all over the world. As of Feb. 2022, the company had 140,000 real estate agents working under its brand. Alongside the estimate of home value, RE/MAX’s tool shows a map of comparable homes for sale in the same ZIP code for homeowners to explore local trends more in depth. Users seeking additional information can also click the “Get Accurate Valuation” link and RE/MAX will follow up with a comparative market analysis from one of its real estate agents. When you type your address into the database, Chase generates an estimated price, a map that shows your property, and the sales prices of neighboring homes. Chase offers an array of financial services to over half of America’s households. Through Chase, you can apply for a mortgage, refinance your home, or take out a home equity line of credit. Chase’s home value estimator is powered by robust data collected from over 10,000 government and proprietary sources. Although Chase doesn’t ask for user-submitted information upfront, a user can adjust the number of beds, baths, total rooms, and total square footage boxes to either represent recent upgrades or forecast the value of a remodeling project. The tool also automatically pulls in a module displaying recent nearby sales information. Enter your address into the tool and click “Get Started.” This will lead you to a screen with your home’s Zestimate, but to view more, you’ll need to create a Zillow account or log into your existing one. Zillow’s Zestimate inputs public, MLS, and user-submitted data into a proprietary formula, which gives consideration to home facts, location, and market trends. The AVM’s accuracy depends on the availability of data in a home’s geographic location. In some markets, home information — such as square footage, number of bedrooms and bathrooms and other details — are more accessible than in other regions. The company offers an up-to-date margin of error for top metropolitan markets and every state. The nationwide median error rate for listed homes hovers around 1.9%; the rate for off-market properties is approximately 6.9%. Zillow and its affiliates offer consumers an array of products and services for selling, buying, renting and financing homes. The company is known as a top website where you can shop for homes online. Launched in 2006, Zillow is the OG of home value estimator tools. When you enter the home address and click “View This Home,” the software generates an estimate and lists the square footage, number of bedrooms, and number of bathrooms for the property. The page breaks out the factors contributing the estimate — specific figures on comparable homes, tax assessment, and sales comps. It features a menu of graphs illustrating your home’s value, rental rates, listing prices over the past 10 years. Be aware that any note on Zillow’s tool that says users can “request a no-obligation market value offer from Zillow” is now outdated. The company is no longer offering direct offers on homes. Zillow shuttered its iBuyer program, Zillow Offers, in Nov. 2021. Once you enter your address, a screen pops up with your estimated home value alongside Google Earth pictures of your home’s exterior, number of beds and baths for the property, and the square footage. Bank of America offers financial services for home loans and refinances. Bank of America’s tool displays MLS property details such as whether the house has a garage, pool, or fireplace, and you can scroll down to see a shaded line graph showing the home’s value over a 10-year period as well as nearby comparable homes in a map format. Its AVMs compiles basic property characteristics, local market information, and price trends to produce a home value estimate. Realtor.com is the only site that gathers estimates directly from multiple, independent AVM providers. To offer consumers access to the same providers used by real estate lenders, investors, and brokers, Realtor.com sources its estimates to Collateral Analytics, CoreLogic, and Quantarium. The company asserts homeowners benefit from the multi-pronged approach because presenting data from multiple sources with their own unique algorithms provides a more complete picture of a home’s potential value. Realtor.com is a major home search and real estate media website. If you “claim” your home by logging in with Facebook, Apple, or your email address, you have access to information on an owner’s dashboard. That page includes a graph of your home’s value over the past five years, market trends for your area, the property sales history, a home sale net proceeds calculator, and additional metrics and tools. Users enter their address and Redfin delivers an immediate estimate of value along with the chance to claim “I’m the owner” of the property. After verifying ownership, a user can update and make corrections to their property details, similar to how they can on Realtor.com and Zillow. Pulling data directly from the MLS, Redfin bases its calculations on the value of recently sold homes in your area. Redfin is a real estate brokerage that charges a discounted rate (1% or 1.5%) for its listings services. On its website, Redfin says Redfin Estimate is the most accurate among leading automated home-value tools — more than twice as likely to be within 3% of the home’s selling price as other top online home-value estimators. If your geographic area is within its service zone, Redfin generates an estimate and displays a map with photos of other properties that have sold in the area. There’s also a link to schedule a sales consultation. eppraisal.com’s estimator accesses public county records and culls the data from up to 20 recent property values and nearby comparable properties. To calculate a price range, it plugs that information into a proprietary mathematical formula that takes into account each property’s characteristics and recent property sales in the area. eppraisal.com is a free real estate and home value website that aggregates data on recent home sales, neighborhoods, and local market trends. Eppraisal provides information in a stripped down, bare-bones format. Besides the estimate, its results page shows a map and public records’ information as well as some home loan options.Tool
Estimated value of test home
HomeLight’s Home Value Estimator
$486,000
RE/MAX
$463,054-477,049
Chase Mortgage Services
$461,700
Zillow Zestimate
$481,300
Bank of America
$490,805
Realtor.com
$461,700
Redfin Estimate
Home out of service area
Eppraisal
$461,043 – $470,357
HomeLight’s Home Value Estimator
Value of Home Inputted: $486,000
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RE/MAX
Value of Test Home: $463,054-477,049
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Chase Mortgage Services
Value of Test Home: $461,700
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Zillow Zestimate
Value of Test Home: $481,300
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Bank of America
Value of Test Home: $490,805
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Realtor.com
Value of Test Home: $461,700
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Redfin Estimate
Value of Test Home: Unavailable because location is outside service market
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eppraisal
Value of Test Home: $465,700 with range $461,043 – $470,357
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