Sometimes homeowners get to think about the value of their homes when they’re ready to sell, other times they just getting curious and want to know how much equity they have in the home, or if their mortgage is more than what the home is worth in a down market, specially if they purchase the home not too long ago and then the market went down, some homeowners might get anxious of thinking of losing money. Whatever the reason is, it’s good to know how to evaluate your Pensacola home, or anywhere nationwide for that matter. This will help you to be prepare all the times without the need of searching online for countless amount time to find out or try to figure things out on your own. Because in this article, we will provide you with the ultimate guidance to evaluate your Pensacola home.
The first time I ever bought my personal home in Pensacola, Florida was in 2006 right before the market crash in 2008. So you know I bought my home at top dollar where I lost my equity (If there was any) after the real estate market crash, and I owed for mortgage more than my home was worth at that time. I didn’t know how to evaluate my home but I knew based of what I found online with real estate websites like Zillow and Realtor.com who are specialized in home evaluation and data, that my home worth less than what I have paid for it.
I bought my second house and it was investment rental property in Pensacola, Florida as well in 2011. I did know a little more about home evaluations but I wasn’t an expert by any mean. I just knew to navigate a little more online and I had an agent that I was working with at the time. Without going through a lot of details. That house was my gate to enter the real estate world, and I have bought and sold hundreds of houses to either fix and flip, or using the properties as rentals.
I’m going to walk you though the typical websites you could find online like Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia, and Redfin. And compare which one of those sites has the most accuracy when it comes to home evaluations based on the same house address that we own. We’re going to put on the search bar for each website the home address and find out and how much each website evaluate the home for, and then we’re going to show some comps to see how much per square foot is sold for, and then multiply by the square footage of the subject home to get the ARV (After repair value). Also, I will show you step by step on how to go to the Escambia county property appraisal website so you can pull the comps. But if you’re in another city like Milton, Florida in Santa Rosa county, Or Fort Walton Beach in Okaloosa county. Then you have to go to your county website to discover the comps sold in the last 6 months for your home. And this will apply to anywhere nationwide on how to go to the county property appraisal website in the county where your property is to pull the comps and evaluate your home.
Now let’s start the Godzilla of real estate website evaluation and data Zillow.
Evaluate Your Pensacola Home In Zillow
According to a lot of resources, Zillow has the website with the largest online database of houses. They have a vast number of listings and are considered the most popular real estate website in the United States. But even then, all the real estate online platforms including Zillow can be way off when it comes to home evaluations specially on what the value of the homes. Sometimes they can be close to the actual value of the homes or even accurate. and other times they can be way off to the point of confusing the homeowners and buyers who are looking to purchase a home.
To demonstrate this for you, I picked a property that way own at my company to show you what I’m talking about.
This is a house that we have in Pensacola, Florida. The address as showing on Zillow is 21 Pen Haven Dr, Pensacola, Fl. They have the property value at $12,502 which is far from being accurate. The reason is, the pictures they have on Zillow are the pictures before we did the renovations to the house. Which till you that Zillow hasn’t update their information on their website about the new condition of the house. Even though we posted a new pictures of the house when we listed it for rent. This house is worth around $175,000 based on the current condition, so you see how far off Zillow is in this case scenario? If you have a property that you think Zillow or any real estate platform hasn’t update your property to the current status. Make sure to reach out to them so they can fix that and not to get your house under valued in their platform so it won’t effect the offers you get for your house because this can be big time misleading to the buyers.
Now, based on the example above, we know that Zillow is way off on that evaluation, let me show you the current picture of the same house below.
Ironically, I listed this house on Zillow for rent with the new photos but they managed to put back the old photos after I took it out of Zillow when it was rented. So based on this example, you know now that you can’t rely all the times on Zillow platform for you to evaluate your Pensacola home. I have seen accurate home value on Zillow, but not all the times as you see here.
The best way to find out the value of you home is to pull the comps (Comparables). Basically, comps are the similar houses sold in the neighborhood or nearby within .25 mile radius. Real estate agents use the MLS to pull data on comparable sales to perform a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA). The MLS database is updated in real-time with information about properties that are sold and in escrow. You can ask an agent and they will prepare CMA for you in hoping that you list the house with them. But what if you don’t want to deal with agents, how would you pull the comps yourself? The you need to visit the Escambia County Property appraisal website at Escpa.org and you need to do the following.
1- Click on record search and enter you address. Then it will take you to your property page where you have your property information and the name of the owner of the property along with a picture, and also a map where your house is located on the map where you will have your property lines in red like the picture you see below. Then click on the launch interactive map.
This will take you to a page where all the houses surrounding your house on that map. Click on layers on the top right, and then click on improved sales. The go to the left top corner and click on tools, and then click on the blue circle with the exclamation mark to be able to click on any house with colors on the lots to find out what those houses were sold for like the picture we have below.
Each color represent a certain year. For example, the purple color is for the houses that sold in 2024 and the green color for the houses that sold in 2025. You need to look for the houses that sold in the last 6 months or earlier. If you can’t find houses that is close by, then you go further in the map until you find houses that sold in that timeframe.
You want to make sure that the houses you pull are in a good condition and they don’t need any repairs or updates because we need to find out the after repair value (ARV). The way to do this is by going to any real estate website like Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, or Redfin. Some of those websites they save the photos on their websites when they were listed on the market before they got sold, and sometimes they don’t. Make sure to check the other websites if you couldn’t find photos in one website.
For our home we’re going to pull 4 comps only but normally I will suggest you to pull at least 6 and up to 12 comps. I’m going to pull only 4 comps just for education purpose.
Property #1 Sold for $167,000 2 Beds/1 Bath 624 SF Sold for $267.62 Per Square Feet.
Property #2 Sold for $210,000 3 Beds/2Baths 1,040 SF Sold for $201.92 Per Square Feet.
Property #3 Sold for $159,000 3Beds/1Bath 812 SF Sold for $195.81 Per Square Feet.
Property #4 Sold for $ 152,000 2Beds/1Bath 1,110 SF sold for $136.93 Per Square Feet.
Now, what we need to do is add all 4 houses that sold per square feet and divide that number by 4 to get the median price for out home and then multiply that number by the square footage of out home which is 1,158 SF. this will show out home value is $232,260 Based on the comps above.
If your house in not in Escambia county and is in another county like Santa Rosa or Okaloosa county, then you will do the same steps to pull the comps for your house. Most of the county property appraisal website have similar functionality which allow you to pull the comps to evaluate your Pensacola home or anywhere nationwide by going to your county property appraisal website.
We have mentioned at the beginning that there are other real estate platforms like realtor, Redfin, and Trulia. Many times, you will have one platform for one property more accurate than other platform, but other times the same platform that was accurate on the home evaluation is way off for another property. As big as those companies with the real estate websites, but they still lack the accuracy when it comes to home evaluations, the reason is because they simply don’t update the information for any property until the homeowners update the information for them. And sometimes, they still happen to put back the old property information after you updated it with then like what happen on the example above for mysterious reasons.
But to evaluate your Pensacola home and to make sure you’re on point I will still go to other real estate websites and see if one of those website got my home value right.
As you see in the photo above, Realtor.com value the house at $142,000 which that till you they way off too but not as bad as Zillow evaluation in this case scenario. We also have looked at the home in Redfin and they have valued the house at $126,845. However sometimes those real estate companies websites can be accurate and sometimes they’re not.
Zillow uses a proprietary algorithm called the “Zestimate” to evaluate a house, considering public records, recent comparable sales, market trends, and sometimes user-submitted data, while Realtor.com primarily relies on data from the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and other third-party valuation providers, offering a range of potential values based on comparisons to similar recently sold homes, but neither platform can replace a professional appraisal for a definitive valuation, or pulling the comps by you like we showed you above or by hiring an agent to to run CMA for you. And this is the reason why you can’t simply rely on what the online websites claim what your home is worth.
Therefore, you only can use the real estate websites for you home value is a backup and only when one or more of those websites match your comps.
Which Is Better To Evaluate Your Pensacola Home You Or An Agent?
Agents will help you evaluate your Pensacola home in hopes of you listing the the home with them. If your house doesn’t need repairs and you’re not motivated to sell a home much and you’re looking to get top dollar for your home. Then why do the work yourself. You can then hire an agent to run CMA and let you know how much you can list your home for.
But if you’re just curious about what your home is worth and you want to evaluate your Pensacola home, then you can do the steps above that we have showed you.
Now, if you’re in a hurry to sell a Pensacola home and you want a reliable company like Quality Properties Of Northwest Florida LLC. Then we can do your Pensacola home evaluation and give you our best cash offer for your home.
Also check those resources to have more knowledge about and better understanding of different selling scenarios for Pensacola homes.
https://www.qualitypropertiescashbuyer.com/blog/tips-to-sell-a-pensacola-home-faster
https://www.qualitypropertiescashbuyer.com/blog/8-signs-it-is-time-to-sell-a-florida-house
