Before selling or buying a home you need to get a home appraisal. There are several different types of home appraisals and the costs of those different types of home appraisals will differ. So what is a home appraisal? Well it is basically a educated guess as to the value of your home compared to similar properties in your area. The value of your home will differ greatly depending on which type of appraisal you get and who does the appraisal.

The first type of home appraisal is done by a professional home appraiser. This is probably the most expensive method of valuing your home. The appraiser normally takes a couple of hours measuring the size of your home and writing notes. He or she will then create a report of the estimated home value. He will normally compare your home to two other similar properties within the neighborhood. This type of home appraisal will cost the most.

The other type of appraisal is done online. There are several sites that offer free home appraisals. Most of these sites use public data to generate an estimate of your home’s value. All you have to do is enter your home address or the home you are interested in and you will receive an estimate within seconds. These estimates are not used by loan companies but this is a good estimate, especially for free. I suggest getting a home estimate from several of the web sites and averaging the values together. This will get you closer to the true value of the home.