What is this house actually worth?

A valuation is not a number. It is an argument, and it has to survive two audiences: the buyers deciding whether to write an offer, and the appraiser the lender sends afterwards. A price that cannot be defended with closed comparables produces an appraisal gap, and an appraisal gap arrives at the worst possible moment in escrow.

Three different numbers, and people mix them up constantly

Almost every confused conversation about home value is really a confusion between three figures that have nothing to do with each other:

• Market value. What a willing buyer would pay today. This is the number a valuation estimates and an appraiser tests.
• Assessed value. What the county taxes. Under Proposition 13 it is anchored to the base year value set when you bought, and rises by no more than 2 percent a year. On a house held for twenty years it can sit far below market, and it says nothing about what the house would sell for.
• Replacement cost. What an insurer would pay to rebuild the structure. It excludes the land, which in most of Los Angeles County is the larger half of the value, so it is usually the lowest of the three.

None of the three is wrong. They answer different questions. The trouble starts when a figure from a tax bill or an insurance renewal gets used to set a listing price.

Why the portal estimate is usually off

Automated estimates work from public records and recent nearby sales. In newer tract housing, where the houses really are similar, they land close. In Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena they often do not, because the housing stock is old and heavily altered.

Two houses on the same block, both recorded as three bedrooms, can be twenty years apart in construction, one with a permitted addition and one with a garage conversion that never saw a permit. The county record does not know the difference. A buyer's inspector will.

What actually moves the number here

• Permit history. What was built, when, and whether the paperwork exists. Unpermitted square footage is not simply free space; it can reduce what a lender will finance.
• Structure and systems. Foundation, roof, electrical panel, sewer lateral, drainage. This is where construction experience changes a valuation, because these are the items a buyer will price into their offer after the inspection.
• Jurisdiction. Which city the address sits in decides point-of-sale requirements and closing costs. Only five cities in Los Angeles County charge their own transfer tax, and Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena and Santa Clarita are not among them, which is worth real money at closing. The arithmetic.
• Overlays and districts. A historic district, a Mello-Roos district or an airport noise contour changes both the buyer pool and the price.
• What has to be fixed before it can close. Required retrofits are a cost that comes out of the sale, and they differ street by street. The requirements by city.

What the appraiser does, and where deals break

On a financed purchase the lender orders an appraisal, and the appraiser selects their own comparable sales and makes their own adjustments for size, condition, lot and location. They are not looking at the listing photographs or the marketing. If their conclusion lands below the contract price, the lender lends against the lower figure, and the difference becomes cash the buyer has to find or a renegotiation nobody planned for.

This is the practical reason to price from closed comparables rather than from optimism. A listing priced where the comparables support it is a listing that survives the appraisal. It is also why the adjustments should be visible in writing from the start, so that if the appraiser reaches a different view there is something concrete to discuss.

If the value went the other way

Valuation is not only a selling question. If a property is currently worth less than its assessed value, the owner can ask the Los Angeles County Assessor to lower the assessment for the year through a Decline-in-Value Review, form RP-87. The review is free, there is no hearing, and the county accepts applications even without comparable sales attached.

The window is narrow and it is open now: applications are accepted only between 2 July and 30 November, and the form states that anything received outside those dates cannot be processed. The comparable sales the Assessor wants should have closed as close to 1 January as possible and no later than 31 March. The deadline, and the separate appeal track that shares it.

Where the market is right now

Current local conditions, with the figures and their sources, are in the market report: the Burbank housing market, August 2026. Market reports describe conditions across a city. They do not price an individual house, and anyone who quotes you a number without seeing the property is guessing.

What you get

A walkthrough of the property, a written valuation built from closed comparable sales with the adjustments shown, the list of point-of-sale items that apply to that specific address, and an estimate of net proceeds after county transfer tax and closing costs. No obligation to list, and no follow-up campaign if you decide not to.

Alla holds a California general contractor licence alongside her real estate licence, which is why the structural side of a valuation is not guesswork. She works across Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, North Hollywood, Encino and Santa Clarita, and speaks English, Ukrainian and Russian.

If you are preparing to sell rather than just curious, the full sequence is on the sellers page. If you are weighing a purchase, the buyers page covers what to check before writing an offer. Neighbourhood detail by city is in the area guides.