Like many homeowners, we gleefully checked in on our house’s rising values in the early aughts. We were amazed (and maybe a bit wary) of our good fortune- our house had doubled in value in just a decade.

Until the market crashed, that is.

We knew by late 2008  that we couldn’t ask the $400K price tag we once expected to put on our house, but how much was it worth?

I decided to meet with a few real estate agents to get an answer to that question. I also wanted to get a sense of who we might want to list it with when we put it on the market. I trusted that a Realtor would give us a thorough CMA, or Competitive Market Analysis. That is, they’d be able to quickly and easily access information about homes like ours (”comps”) that had sold recently in our neighborhood and thereby gives us targeted information about the right listing price for our house.

Always get three estimates

The first agent who showed up at the house brought along his laptop and glossy brochures. After discussing comps, as well as the effects of foreclosures and short sales in the neighborhood and the depressed economy, he gave me The Number.

As I said, I’d long since abandoned a $400K  listing figure, but his number didn’t even start with a 3! I forced a smile as I fought back tears and desperate thoughts about the realities of selling in this market. He crushed my hopes and dreams for the future.

Agent Two showed up a few hours later. By this point, my outlook was as depressed as the US economy. He gave a very similar talk, showed me a list of comps and then, voila!, produced The Number. Agent Two’s number was $70K higher than the first agent’s. Seventy thousand dollars! How can two supposedly qualified professionals do similar research and draw such different conclusions?

I was certain Agent One could find me a buyer, but at what personal cost? Agent Two’s suggested listing price was more reassuring, but left me feeling suspicious. Was he merely trying to get me to list with him because he was selling hope? After listing with him would we be forced to keep slashing tens of thousands of dollars off the listing price as my house lingered on the market?

Luckily, I had already scheduled an appointment with Realtor Three. Sure enough, his Magic Number was in the middle of the other two. Only, he didn’t share it with me at the end of his pitch, he scheduled a follow up visit with my husband and I to give us his whole spiel.

The hours I spent with these Realtors gave me a better understanding of the current real estate market and my house’s place in it, which quite literally is down the block from a somewhat similar house for sale, a few houses away from a foreclosed house and across the street from two unfinished McMansions whose developer supposedly went bankrupt.

Our house wasn’t even on the market and already I felt like I’d been on a wild roller coaster ride. Ugh. Once the dust settled, my husband and I considered the opinions and options set out before us. We talked things through and came up with a listing price of that seemed just right.

Read more about our house and our neighborhood.