All Forum Posts by: Paul Munly

Ladies and Gents, I'm evaluating an east coast to west coast move, and am debating whether or not to sell my current residence (single family home) or to rent it (and while that's an entirely different discussion, but my current question factors into that discussion).  I've been looking at sites like Zillow, Redfin, and Trulia to get a ballpark value estimate for my property, and they tend to estimate its worth at between $310k to $330k, which I think is in the right ballpark based upon recent sales in the area.  Then I looked at my home-owners insurance company's estimate, which is totally throwing off my guesstimate -- they estimate its value at $350k.  I'm assuming that the insurance company is inflating the numbers a bit for a number of reasons (higher premiums for a start), but I have done some work to the property (new roof, new windows, new HVAC, encapsulated crawlspace) that I'd like to think increases the value a bit (and would make me much happier if I do sell!).  In general, which estimate is more accurate? 

Thanks!

Hi folks! My name's Paul Munly and I'm a full-time federal employee, tired of the 'rat race' and looking at commercial Real Estate investing as a means of creating wealth for my family and giving back to my community. I own a single-family home in the Manassas, VA area and am contemplating a move back home to Portland, Oregon in the not-too-distant future. I've been doing some research and stumbled upon Peter Harris' free Commercial Real Estate Investing for Beginners course on Udemy, which has me hoping to make my first commercial deal by then end of 2016. While I'm still making my way through the course, I've been applying the concepts I've learned thus far (using CAP rates, GRM, Cash Flow, and Cash-on-Cash returns to evaluate properties) and hope to find a mentor in the BiggerPockets community who's interested in teaching me the ropes of doing actual deals in exchange for my assistance. If that sounds interesting to you, or if you have any words of wisdom, drop me a line! I look forward to chatting with you all!