What Is Your Home Worth?

The only way to get a precise number is to have a professional physically walk your home and your neighborhood. Automated Valuation Models (AVMs) do not know your home's current condition, your upgrades (or lack of them), or the details that move value up or down — a sloped lot versus a flat one, a location near a busy road or utility station, or a spot across from a sought-after elementary school.

Here is the part most homeowners never hear: most agents who hand you a CMA are giving you a nicer-looking AVM. They pulled comps from the MLS, but they never walked your home either.

We do it differently. We will come by, free of charge and with no obligation, and complete a Broker Price Opinion (BPO) on your home. A BPO goes further than a standard CMA. It is the same in-depth process banks and lenders across the country use us for when they need to approve financing, like HELOCs and mortgage refinances, or price a bank-owned property. We photograph the home, compare it against similar properties, and evaluate the lot and the neighborhood in person, narrowing your valuation to a range grounded in reality rather than an algorithm.

A BPO sits between a CMA and a full appraisal. A full appraisal from a certified appraiser is the most precise method available, but it comes with a cost and, these days, a wait for scheduling.

Because the Zestimate cannot see your home. Zillow publishes its own accuracy data: the median error rate is roughly 2% for homes that are actively listed, but it jumps to 7% or higher for homes that are not on the market — which is almost certainly the number that applies to you if you are just checking your value out of curiosity. On a $400,000 Pittsburgh home, a 7% miss is nearly $28,000, and that is the midpoint. Half of all off-market Zestimates are off by more than that.

We watched this play out firsthand. A homeowner's Zestimate showed a value about $50,000 higher than the home was actually worth. We were not the listing agent, but another agent priced and listed it at that inflated number. Five months on market, six price drops later, it sold for $70,000 less than the Zestimate, a $20,000 loss even below the algorithm's number. A home that sits and keeps dropping starts to look suspicious to buyers, and it becomes a magnet for lowball offers.

The Zestimate is a starting point, not a pricing strategy.

Because an automated tool cannot see condition. Even when you tell it whether your home is in great shape or needs work, it is still guessing at a good, better, best scenario. Dozens of factors outside the home itself affect value too, and your neighbors are part of that. A house next to a yard full of junk cars and clutter loses value. A house on a block of well-kept lawns and clean curb appeal gains it. An in-person valuation is the only way to account for either one.

A CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) is what most agents run: comps pulled from the MLS, usually without ever seeing the home. A BPO (Broker Price Opinion) adds an in-person walkthrough, photos, and a neighborhood evaluation, the same depth banks require before approving financing. A full appraisal, performed by a state-certified appraiser, is the most precise and is legally required for most mortgage transactions. Each step up trades speed and cost for accuracy.

Yes. There is no cost and no obligation to list your home with us. We only charge banks and lenders for BPOs. We offer BPOs because an accurate number, given without pressure, is how homeowners make good decisions, whether that means selling this year or waiting five more.

Almost always, and often by more than homeowners expect. A finished basement, an updated kitchen, or a newer roof can shift a home's value well outside what an AVM shows, since none of that data is reliably captured in public records. A BPO accounts for it. An AVM does not.

Most home walkthroughs take 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the size of the property. You will typically have a refined value range within a day or two after that, once we have compared your home against recent, truly similar sales in your neighborhood.