What is your home worth?

A home valuation is an opinion of what a house would sell for today, on the open market, to a buyer who is under no pressure. It is not the assessed value on your tax bill, which is set by the town for its own purposes and often lags the market by years, and it is not the number an online portal shows, which is a formula.

For a sale, the valuation is the starting point for the asking price. For a refinance or a home equity line, the lender orders their own version, called an appraisal, and lends against it.

The method is comparison. John pulls the closed sales nearest to your house in time and distance, ideally on similar lots, and adjusts each one for how it differs from yours: a bathroom more or less, a finished basement, a newer roof, a corner lot, taxes that are higher or lower than the block. The adjusted sale prices land in a range, and where your house sits inside that range depends on its condition and on how many homes are for sale that month.

One thing the sales show matters more on Long Island than most places: property taxes. Two similar houses with a two thousand dollar difference in taxes do not sell for the same money.

It is a decent way to find out roughly what neighbourhood you are in. It is a poor way to price a house. The formula has never seen your kitchen, does not know the basement floods, cannot tell a renovation from a permit, and treats the house across the street with the same square footage as identical to yours. On a block where the houses are alike it can be close. On a block where they are not, it can be off by more than a real estate commission in either direction.

A valuation from a person who has walked through the house, and who has sold others like it, closes that gap. That is what this form asks for.

No. Plenty of people ask because they are refinancing, settling an estate, splitting a household, or just want to know where they stand. Say so on the form. You get the same number either way, and no follow-up you did not ask for.

Nothing. A comparative market analysis is part of what a real estate salesperson does, and there is no fee for it and no obligation attached. A formal appraisal by a licensed appraiser is a different product, usually ordered by a lender, and that one is paid for by the homeowner, typically a few hundred dollars.