Home Values · Metro Atlanta
What Is My Home Actually Worth?
You can get three different numbers for the same house on the same afternoon — and each one is built for a different purpose. Here's what separates them, when an online estimate is good enough, and when you need a value that will hold up if someone challenges it.
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Three Different Numbers, Three Different Jobs
"What's my home worth" doesn't have one answer, because the number depends on who is producing it and what it has to survive. These are the three you'll run into, and none of them is a scam — they're just built for different things.
The Automated Estimate
Free, instant, and generated by a model that has never been inside your house. Useful for a rough sense of your neighborhood. Not something to price a sale on, and not evidence anywhere.
The Agent's CMA
A comparative market analysis from a real person who knows the area, usually free, often prepared while competing for your listing. Frequently close to right. It is an opinion of price, not an independent opinion of value.
The Certified Appraisal
An inspection, verified comparable sales, and documented adjustments, signed by a licensed appraiser with no stake in the outcome. Costs money and takes a few days. It's the one that holds up when someone pushes back.
Why The Estimate Misses
What An Algorithm Can't See
Automated valuation models work by pattern-matching public records: square footage, bed and bath count, lot size, and what nearby homes recently sold for. On a street of near-identical houses built the same year, that gets reasonably close.
It breaks down the moment your home differs from the pattern. The model can't see condition, and condition is often the single largest adjustment in a report. It doesn't know which of your neighbors' sales were genuinely comparable and which were a distressed sale, a transfer between family members, or a flip. It can't tell a finished basement from an unfinished one, or a full renovation from a listing photo taken at a flattering angle.
It also can't weigh things that a buyer in your specific submarket cares about — the school attendance line two streets over, the difference between a quiet block and a cut-through, whether the lot is actually usable.
None of that makes the estimate useless. It makes it a starting point that should never be the last word when real money or a legal filing is riding on the number.
Where the gap is widest
- Homes with significant renovations or deferred maintenance
- Unusual layouts, additions, or converted space
- Large, sloped, or oddly shaped lots
- Neighborhoods with very few recent sales to learn from
- Older housing stock where condition varies wildly house to house
- Any value that needs to be as of a past date rather than today
When The Number Has To Hold Up
Reasons People Call Me For A Real Value
Most people don't start out looking for an appraiser. They start out wanting to know what their house is worth, and then discover the number has to satisfy someone else — a court, the IRS, a sibling, a county board. These are the situations where that happens.
Selling or Pricing a Home
Setting a list price you can defend, or selling without an agent and having no CMA to work from.
Settling an Estate
A parent has died and the home needs a value as of the date of death — for probate, for the IRS, and to establish stepped-up basis before anyone sells.
Dividing Property in a Divorce
One spouse buying the other out, or a marital home being split, where both sides need a value neither side picked.
Appealing a Tax Assessment
The county says your home is worth more than you believe. An appraisal to a January 1 effective date is the evidence a Board of Equalization weighs.
Valuing Land or a Vacant Lot
Land takes comparable land sales and a highest-and-best-use analysis, which is a different exercise from valuing a house.
A Contested Value
Someone has produced a number you disagree with, and you need an independent opinion or a rebuttal of theirs.
Questions
Common questions
How is an appraisal different from a Zestimate or other online estimate?
An automated estimate is a statistical model. It reads public records and past sales, then predicts a number for a house it has never seen. It doesn't know your kitchen was redone, that the basement floods, or that the house backs onto a highway.
An appraisal starts from the property itself. I walk it, measure it, note the condition and the features that move value, then compare it against verified sales of genuinely similar homes nearby, adjusting for the differences and documenting why. The result is an opinion of value someone else can follow and check.
Is an appraisal the same as my county tax assessment?
No, and they're often far apart. Your county assessor values hundreds of thousands of properties at once using mass appraisal, on a January 1 effective date, usually without ever entering the home. It's built for consistency across a tax roll, not accuracy on your specific house.
That gap is exactly why assessment appeals exist. If your assessed value looks high, an independent appraisal is the evidence a Board of Equalization will actually weigh.
Can I use this appraisal for my mortgage, or give it to my buyer's lender?
No. Lenders are required to order appraisals through their own independent channel, so a report you commissioned can't be substituted. No appraiser can change that, and you should be skeptical of anyone who says otherwise.
What an appraisal does do is let you act on a real number now, and it makes the eventual lender appraisal less likely to surprise you, since both are built from the same comparable sales.
How much does a home appraisal cost?
It depends on the size and complexity of the property, and I quote a flat fee on the first call rather than after the fact. The honest way to think about it is against what the number is deciding. If it sets a list price, settles an estate, or supports a tax appeal, the fee is usually small next to the amount at stake.
How long does it take?
I schedule the inspection within one to three days of your call, and the completed report goes out the same day I inspect. The inspection itself usually takes under an hour for a typical home.
Do I actually need an appraisal, or is an agent's CMA enough?
Sometimes the CMA is enough, and I'll say so. If your neighborhood has plenty of recent, closely comparable sales and your home is typical for it, a good agent can get close.
An appraisal earns its keep in two situations: when the home is hard to compare (heavy renovations, unusual layout, large or odd lot, thin sales data), or when the number will be questioned by someone with an opposing interest, such as the IRS, a co-owner, an ex-spouse, or a county board.
Not Sure Which Number You Need?
Tell me the address and what the value is for. If an online estimate or your agent's CMA will do the job, I'll tell you that — it's a short conversation either way.