You may be wondering “What is my house in Hawaii worth?” If you’re thinking of selling your house on Oahu (or a neighboring island), it’s helpful to know its current value. If you’re not a Hawaii real estate professional, then you may not know where to start. In this two-part post, I’m going to give you the tools you need to get started on figuring out your Hawaii home’s value.
Understanding Home Value
Before trying to calculate your Hawaii home’s value, you must first understand or define the true meaning of “value“. The value of a home is nothing more than what someone is willing and able to buy it for. That’s the simplest definition and it holds true for a house as much as it does for a car or a baseball trading card.
Homeowners often have an inflated view of their home’s value — this often ends up in a home sitting on the market without any interest from home buyers. This may be because the owner is including their memories and emotions in their assessment of the home’s worth. Unfortunately, this doesn’t really count when assessing home value because new buyers will not factor this into their own estimate of your home’s value. They want to build their own memories with a clean slate.
Also, many homeowners feel that their home is special. In many ways, this is absolutely true! Your home is indeed special to you and likely holds much sentimental value. However, you must understand that just about every home seller feels the same way about their home, and as such, this again means having to stay objective when gauging the value of your home.
This is not meant to sound harsh – this is meant as useful advice that, unfortunately, is often overlooked and ultimately hurts the homeowner who truly wishes to sell their house.
Apples to Apples Comparison
There are many different types of homes in Hawaii, the majority being here in Oahu. The key concept to keep in mind when figuring out how much your house in Hawaii is worth is to perform an “apples to apples” comparison.
This means only using data from similar houses to assess the value of your house. By “similar” we primarily mean size, age, location, layout, and condition. Don’t use a new single-family house in Hawaii Kai to help determine the value of your older home in Kailua. Even houses directly across the street from each other may not be good comparisons if the number of bedrooms and bathrooms are significantly different.
Related Post:
What is My House in Hawaii Worth? Part 2
In the next post, I’ll go over more specifics on how to assess the value of your home in Hawaii. Stay tuned!