Pricing your home when Texas doesn't publish sold prices
Draft Pending review by a Texas title professional before it is final.
In most states you can look up what the house down the street sold for. In Texas you can't. Here is why, and what an owner can use instead to set a price.
Updated
Why there's no public list of sold prices
Texas is what people call a non-disclosure state. When a home sells, the deed recorded with the county doesn’t have to state the price, and most deeds don’t. The price shows up in the papers of the title company and the lender, and in the private listing services agents subscribe to — not in any public record an owner can search.
So an owner selling on their own can’t look up what the house down the street sold for last spring. The evidence has to come from somewhere else.
What the appraisal district's value is — and isn't
Every county’s appraisal district sets a market value for every property as of January 1, for property taxes. It is a mass appraisal: a model applied to thousands of homes at once, usually without anyone stepping inside. It doesn’t know about your new kitchen or your leaking roof, and when prices are moving it can sit well above or below what a buyer would pay today.
On a homestead, the taxable value can be lower than the market value, because Texas limits how fast a homestead’s taxable value can rise each year. Look at the market value line, not the taxable one — and treat it as a starting point, not a price.
A pre-listing appraisal
A state-licensed or certified appraiser can appraise the home before you list it. You pay for it, and you get a written opinion of value as of a date, with the sales the appraiser compared your home to. Appraisers can see sales that aren’t public, which is the point.
A pre-listing appraisal helps most when a home is hard to compare: acreage, an unusual house, a neighborhood with few recent sales, or a market that is moving fast. It is still an opinion, and the buyer’s lender will order its own.
A broker's price opinion
A licensed real estate broker can give you a written opinion of the price your home would likely sell for, often called a broker’s price opinion. It isn’t an appraisal, but a broker sees the sales data in the listing service agents use. Ask what it costs before you order one, and whether it comes with conditions attached.
Homes for sale near you
The homes for sale near you — on ListedBy and anywhere else — are your competition. A buyer will compare yours with them on the same afternoon. Compare the things buyers compare: living area, bedrooms and baths, age and condition, the lot, garage and pool, the school district, the monthly cost including taxes, and how long each one has been for sale.
Remember that an asking price is only an ask. A home that has sat for months at one price is telling you something about that price.
Reading the market once you're listed
The first weeks on the market say the most. Showing requests, questions from buyers and homes saved are the market answering. Many showings and no offers often point to price or condition; very few showings often point to price or photos. Owners who change their price usually do it after a few weeks of that evidence, not after a few days.
When the buyer's lender appraises
When the buyer is borrowing, the lender orders its own appraisal, and it lends on the lower of the price and the appraised value. If the appraisal comes in under the price, the gap is a negotiation: the buyer brings more cash, you lower the price, or you meet in between. What each side can do next depends on the contract — the buyer’s financing terms (the Third Party Financing Addendum, form 40-11) and any appraisal addendum the buyer added.
When the buyer has an agent, the agent’s fee is part of the same arithmetic: compare offers by what you keep, not by the price alone.
What ListedBy does, and doesn't
ListedBy never gives a price opinion. Your listing starts from the county’s record of your home — the lot, the year built and, where the county publishes them, the living area, bedrooms and baths — and every fact says whether it came from the county roll or from you. The net sheet shows what you would keep at any price you try: your price, less your loan payoff, title and closing costs, with a listing commission line of $0.