Just want to share on how you can DIY the estimation of your property's value:
1. Troll various property forums
2. Call up property agents
3. Stay updated thru your friends, etc
Lastly, IMHO is a good way to roughly estimate the property value for free and it is highly accurate compared to above:
The answer is trolling the property auction site. The good thing is that the reserve prices is always very close to a bank's valuation of the said property. Well, the banks have their own property appraisers. The "Reserve Price" normally found in auction sites is the result of their valuation. Of course, any caveat and encumberance on the said properties are not highlighted. You will need to contact the lawyers to get further detail.
Usually, you need to pay these appraisers money to appraise your property if you are damn clues-less about your property's market value. (Not sure who will do that unless your property is in the few million's range)
The 2nd point is that the amount of loan a bank will lend to you (usually 90% of the value for 1st & 2nd property) is dependant of the outcome of their valuations. So if you want to sell your property at RM500K, but the valuers only appraise your property to be RM400K, the buyer of your property can only loan up till 90% of RM400K (again as an example, 1st & 2nd property). And the buyer will need to fork out an extra RM100K (to be exact RM140K aka RM100K + 10% downpayment of RM400K) in a lump sum manner to the seller.
This could be a turn-off to people purchasing your property because they need to pay a lump sum in cash. Oh well, that is a different story. That goes to purchasing a property from an auction sale.
The disadvantage to trolling auction sites is that most property auctioned off is not in hot aka high demand areas. Only once in a blue moon, you see some good properties being auctioned off. Perhaps when economic crisis hits, you see more good properties put on fire sale?? Hmm..point to ponder and get ready your bullets.
Here is one of the website I am currently looking at from time to time . Link Here
More official way is to call up a bank directly or get the bank contact number to evaluate the property value for you.
Yes, ChampDog. But mostly you will need to pay some money :D An ordinary average bank office will not able to give you the info.