Use the County Assessors Site to Sell Your Home Faster

The first thing I do when I am thinking about how to sell my home is get online and go to my county assessor's website. Does that surprise you? Are you wondering what that has to do with selling my home? Well, let me explain.

Your county assessor is a treasure trove of information about real estate because the public records in the assessor's office include every sale and every taxable evaluation in your county. Meaning, you can find out the name and address of every property owner and the value that your county places on every property as of the most current assessment date.

Of course every county in every state has its own methods of sharing all this vital information. Some counties are a little behind the times and it's still necessary to physically go into the assessor's office and look at big books or little index cards on which the public information is kept. But, thankfully, most counties in most states are providing this information online now, giving you the ability to search county assessor's records from your recliner in front of the television set, if you're so inclined. In fact, regardless of where you are located you can search any county in the country, making it possible to buy homes or other investment real estate in any area.

Back to my own process here… So, after I get online and connect with the county assessor's information I find my own home. Somewhere on the page there will be a number that indicates an area or a region in my county, and in my case personally, it will be a section of a large city. If you cannot locate a number indicating a particular area, call the assessor's office and ask about it. They all have some kind of grid system for designating areas so that appraisers, for the county and for private firms and individuals can compare properties in the same area. Houses in one part of the county or one part of a large city are compared to other homes in the same area for tax assessment and appraisal purposes.

It just makes sense to do it that way. Then I pull up a list of all the homes in my area, which will most likely include a link to each individual address and the assessor's page associated with that address. That tells me a lot of information about my neighborhood and my area. It also provides me with contact information if I decide to get in touch with my neighbors to see if they or anyone they know would like to sell a home.

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