The best and easiest way to determine the asking price of your home is by taking into account sales of similar properties in your area in the recent past. It may not be possible to always have an apple to apple comparison, since no two real estate properties are identical. Yet the following things should be kept in mind while deciding the value of your apartment.
A. Locality
Compare somewhat identical homes in your locality. Grow as much narrow as possible in your comparison. You can derive a close estimate of the value of your property if you can compare it with executed deals of other flats in the same area, locality and road.
B. Date of Sale
It’s always beneficial and of great value to use recent sales data. Ideally, we can take into account sales data of last six months.
C. Type of Building
Some buildings are standalone buildings and some are gated societies. There is also variation in the amenities that these buildings provide as well as community built up. There is always a premium attached to flats that are in gated societies and have many amenities to boast of along the with like-minded community.
D. Configuration & Efficiency in apartment plan
It really makes sense to compare houses with similar configurations, viz., number of rooms, washrooms, usage area, etc.
E. Upgrades and Furnishings
A house that is well furnished, has a ready kitchen, or is recently renovated naturally attracts more value than others. Thoughtfully and tastefully done upgrades can create “Love at First Sight” experience for the buyer. Thus a well maintained and well decorated house increases the probability of quick sale as well as better price / realization for the seller.
Apart from this it also makes more sense if we do not include those houses/flats in the comparison that are sold in distress. These distress sales are one-off sales and does not give you the correct picture.
It is always advisable to keep our sacred dwelling – our home reasonably well and up to date, so that whenever we decide to sell, we should get a decent and fair value for it. Make sure you get your painted once in 5 years, get small repairs done in time, as this will ensure that when you want to sell, you don’t need to do a lot of upkeep.
