Real Estate | Bristow & Northern Virginia
Quick question: do you actually know what your house is worth today — not what Zillow guessed, not what your neighbor's place sold for two years ago, but a real, current number?
Most homeowners don't. And that's worth fixing, because there's a decent chance that number has six figures behind it, quietly doing more work than you realize.
You've Probably Built More Equity Than You Think
Home values have climbed a lot over the past decade, and even in today's more balanced market, homeowners are building wealth just by making their monthly payments and watching their loan balance shrink. That's equity, and it adds up faster than most people expect.
Cotality puts the typical mortgaged homeowner's equity at roughly $310,500 nationally right now. That's just the average — depending on your state and how long you've owned, you could be sitting on quite a bit more.
Whatever your number actually is, the bigger point stands: if you haven't checked it recently, you're missing information that could change how you think about your next move.
Why "Rates Are Higher Now" Isn't the Whole Story
A lot of people assume that between today's prices and today's rates — especially if they're sitting on an ultra-low rate from a few years back — moving just doesn't make sense anymore. That's a fair concern, and it's real.
But it's not the only factor in the equation.
When you're carrying six figures of equity into your next purchase, you're not starting from zero. You're not scraping together a down payment or hoping the math works out. You're negotiating from a position most buyers don't have — and that changes what's actually possible.
What That Equity Can Actually Do
Whether you've outgrown your current place or you're ready to size down, your equity is the bridge between where you are now and where you want to be next. Yes, your next house will probably cost more than your last one did — but equity can close a big part of that gap. Depending on how much you've built, it could:
- Shrink your monthly payment. A bigger down payment means borrowing less, and at today's rates, borrowing less makes a real difference in what you pay every month.
- Let you skip financing altogether. Nearly one in three repeat buyers paid cash for their home last year, per NAR — often funded entirely by equity from their last sale.
- Fund a renovation instead of a move. Love your neighborhood but not your floor plan? Equity can pay for the changes that make your current home work, while potentially adding value along the way.None of this erases the real challenges in today's market. But it does mean you're walking in with a lot more leverage than you might assume.
What We See Locally
Online estimates from sites like Zillow and Redfin can be way off — sometimes too high, sometimes too low — so it's worth being careful about accepting one of those numbers as gospel. Here's what we actually do: we pull anywhere from 4 to 6 different online estimates and look at the full range. In some cases, that range is a reasonable $20,000 to $40,000 spread. But in plenty of other cases, we've seen the range come in at $60,000 to $120,000 — a genuinely huge difference depending on which site you happen to check.
So what do you do when the online estimates themselves can't agree? We treat those numbers as a reference point, nothing more, and then pull the actual comparable sales ourselves to arrive at a real, defensible value.
This is where years of experience actually matter. We've done a lot of work with banks over the years completing Broker Price Opinions (BPOs) — which are very similar to a formal appraisal — and we've been through many classes specifically on how banks evaluate a property's value. That includes understanding the tolerances appraisers work within (how much a home's age or size can vary between comps before it's no longer a fair comparison) and how to properly adjust for real differences between homes — bedroom count, bathroom count, square footage, and more. That kind of hands-on experience is exactly what turns a wide, unreliable online range into a number you can actually trust.
Stop Guessing — Get the Real Number
An online estimate isn't reliable, and neither is "well, the house down the street sold for X" — neither accounts for your specific home, your upgrades, or what's actually happening on your exact street right now. The only way to really know is a proper, market-based look at your property.
If it's been a while since someone gave your home's value an honest look, let's change that.
Ready for a free, no-pressure home equity assessment? We'll tell you what your home could sell for, how much equity you've likely built, and what that could mean for your next move. Get started →
Related reading: Why Your Home Is Actually an Investment