The week between Christmas and New Years can be an excellent time for reflection and the perfect time for setting your direction for the coming year.  The holiday rush has come and gone and for a day or several days, a hush falls.  This can create a wonderful atmosphere for musing about where you’ve been and where you want to go from here.

For a homeowner, this can be a good time to assess the investment you’ve made in the piece of real estate you own.

• Are there repairs needed to preserve the value of your property?
• Is your investment in the property resulting in increasing equity?

Each year that you own your home you would hope to be seeing equity growth.  It may be more some years than others, but every year you should hope to see the gap growing between what you still owe on the mortgage and the market value of the home.

Here in northern New Jersey the average equity gains realized by the majority of homeowners has been around 12% year over year, depending on the community.  While lenders will most certainly use a far more complicated formula to determine equity for the purpose of loans, a quick assessment can be made for your own knowledge fairly easily.  Market value less any debt owed on the home gives you a general idea of equity growth.

If you aren’t planning to sell this year, why would you want to know your market value?

There are lots of other reasons besides selling where this information can be useful.

• Gauging equity growth
• Determining value of updating or remodeling
• Understanding the assessed value on your tax bill

The Tax Assessors base value usually isn’t an accurate picture of market value for sale purposes.  This value is to measure the amount of property tax you will be paying.  Knowing market value can be a useful tool if you believe your taxes may be assessed higher than they should be.

Even when a sale isn’t in your near future, data provided by your local marketing specialist can be good information to know and preparation for whatever your future holds.

Happy Holidays from Laura Sulborski Properties