<p>Is it the value that you could sell ur home for, or is it the tax assessed value of ur home?</p>
<p>Home equity is the fair market value of your home (i.e. what you could sell it for) minus any outstanding debt on your home (the mortgage balance, for instance).</p>
<p>If you could sell your home for $300,000 today and you still owe $220,000 on your mortgage, then you have $80,000 in home equity.</p>
<p>but how is the value of ur home measured? is it simply the tax appraised value of ur home.</p>
<p>good question..value could have changed significantly since your last valuation. I believe it's fair market value...but how would you get an exact figure without an appraisal?</p>
<p>thats what im thinking, and the tax assessed value seems like itd be an official value that one could use. </p>
<p>does anyone know? D:</p>
<p>The way I did it was to research what homes were selling for in our neignborhood or at least what they are listed for to get a general ballpark figure. You just to be reasonably close not exact. DO NOT USE THE ASSESSED value. Now a days it is problably higher than what you could sell it for. I read in "paying for college without going broke" that you should even subtract all costs of selling your home. if you sold your home for $300,000 paid off $150,000 mortgage your profit (equity) would not be $150,000 after realitor fees and closing costs. That is why they never lend you more than 80%. Good luck</p>
<p>hmm, for my family anyways, the tax assessed value of our home is like 180kish, cuz weve had the home for a long time and its close to what my parents paid for it, but im not exactly sure how tax assessed values even work (could someone explain that too?, just for the heck of it). but now, i think market value of our home is about 280kish. so would it be legitimate to put, as the post above me said, like 80% of 280, or could i legitimately use the tax assessed value, since it is an official value?</p>
<p>I'm not sure why your tax assessed value hasn't gone up significantly over the years. Since the county, city, and schools make more money off of higher tax assessed values, they tend to go up whether or not they should. Around here, they go up so significantly from year to year that it's somewhat common to head to the county tax assessor every now and then to fight the value they assessed. And many people "win" and reduce their assessed value for choosing to "fight." They fight by doing a version of what gymmom2007 suggested. They ask realtors to give them a list of recent sales of comparable homes in their area, and they take that list up to the county. The listed home prices won't help, but the actual sales prices will. Very often, the county accepts the data presented on the list, and they lower the value. It's kind of crazy.</p>
<p>Realtors provide that service for free and typically within a day or two.</p>
<p>You asked how tax assessed values work ... Basically, the county assigns a value to your property based on the size of the property, what physical structures are on the property, the size of the structures, what the structures are made of, whether there are added features that make the structure more desirable, etc. That's you tax assessed value. The tax assessed value is important to everybody because the property owner must pay property taxes based on that value, and whoever is legally entitled to the taxes makes money based on that value. The amount the owner must pay is equal to the established tax rate in your community multiplied by the assessed value of the property. In my town, the property taxes we pay go to the county, the city, and the public school system -- which is pretty typical.</p>
<p>I don't know who would know whether or not you used the tax assessed value on your FAFSA. I can't imagine that anybody would find out. </p>
<p>Technically, I do not think it is legitimate or honest, but I'm kind of a stickler about honesty. Even if I there might be a negative consequence for the honesty (like a higher EFC).</p>
<p>What they really want to know on the FAFSA is -- how much would your home sell for today; and how much do you still owe on the home? If your tax assessed value is atypically low and not representative of what your home would sell for today, then the tax assessed value is not really a legitimate, honest answer.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I do know that lots and lots of people do what they can to make the numbers work and perhaps if it ever came to light (and I can't see how it would), you could make the case that you thought the tax assessed value was representative of the fair market value. After all, you reason, why would the county assign that value to your property if it wasn't representative of its real value? Especially when they have everything to gain by raising assessed values from year to year. But, of course, you would be lying.</p>
<p>So, in sum ... This is not what I would do -- because I'm a stickler about honesty and believe that things will be as they should be if I'm honest, even if the consequences feel a little "painful" at the time. But I know that people do this sort of thing all the time, get away with it, and do not think of it as dishonest at all.</p>
<p>If your home is paid for, do colleges expect you to take out a second mortgage to pay for your child's college?</p>
<p>Also, in today's economy, how can you estimate what you would sell your home for? How about zero? Nobody can sell their home if they wanted to!</p>
<p>Would it be worth hiring someone to do an appraisal on the house to use when filling out the FAFSA, or is there some formula that's used?</p>
<p>For example, we bought our house is 1989, paid 86K for it. We live in an area where no houses are selling, so no comps to compare to.</p>