Estimating home value

[Kevin K.]

I was wondering what tips or ideas or tools even that members use to judge how much you could potentially get back on a flip.  

I'm looking at a house right now that's foreclosed for 59,9. Pretty big. 1100 sq ft. I would judge the return on it by prices of homes in the area of simliar square footage ,however they seem to be anywhere from 80-90k all the way to 250k. 

I can't really employ any "70%" rules because I'm not sure if 59,9 is a good price or not.  The home's been on the market here for 4 months now.

[Jon Holdman]

@Rebecca Waranch if zillow's "zestimate" is actually close to the true value its by pure luck.  Zillow is useful for finding some comp info, but you CANNOT use its zestimates for anything more than a ballpark guess.  They aren't always even that close.

@Kevin K. it would be nice if this was easy, wouldn't it.  Getting comps is the first step.  They have to be true comps.  Not only close and recent as other mention, but the same style, same condition and same defects and amenities.  

And same neighborhood.   Distance and major roads might (or might not) be a factor.  So you actually need feet on the ground and an understanding of neighborhood boundaries to know which to choose.  A house that's 1000 ft away, across the street in a very different neighborhood is a poor comp where on that's a mile away in the same neighborhood would be a better one.

Then you have to make adjustments like an appraiser would in your area to account for the differences.  If your "comps" vary from $80K to $250K you're not getting good comps.  Even among themselves something is very different about those comps.  You need to figure that out and figure out which are the good comps for your property.