What's it worth? The best place to start is by looking objectively at the real estate market itself, and allowing sale prices of comparable homes in your neighborhood to guide you in establishing a realistic asking price. While no two homes are exactly the same, your goal is to find three comparable homes that have sold in the last year situated as close to your home as possible.

By compensating for differences in these other sales, you can arrive at an estimate of what a typical buyer might be willing to pay for your home. Basically, that's how an appraiser decides what your house is worth. Complicating the issue is the fact that you probably will not be able to be objective in evaluating your own house. Because you live there, you likely have a bias in favor of your own home's features. That's why you bought it in the first place.

To get an outside opinion of your home's real value, you have two choices: realty agents and appraisers. I believe it makes sense to get multiple opinions. But remember that real estate appraising is an art, not a science. It is nothing more than an educated guess at what your house is worth at this moment in time.