How much is my house worth is the first question almost every seller asks, and it is the right place to start. The honest answer is that a home is worth what a ready, willing, and able buyer will pay for it in today's market, not what it cost, not what is owed on it, and not what the house across the street listed for last spring.
Here is how a number is actually arrived at. The tool used is called a comparative market analysis, or CMA. It looks at homes nearby that are similar in size, age, condition, and layout, and that have sold in the last three to six months. Recent closed sales matter more than active listings, because a listing only tells what a seller hopes to get. A closed sale tells what a buyer truly paid.
Online estimates are a fine starting point, but they should be treated as a rough guess. Zillow's home value for San Antonio sat around $251,000 in mid-2026, while local board data showed a median closer to $290,000 to $310,000 depending on property type. That spread shows exactly why an automated number can be off by tens of thousands of dollars. These tools cannot see a remodeled kitchen, a foundation issue, or the fact that a street backs to a busy road.
Three things move value the most. First, location, which cannot be changed. Second, condition, which can. Third, timing, meaning where the market sits right now. In the current San Antonio market, inventory has climbed and homes are taking longer to sell, around 70 to over 100 days in many reports, which gives buyers more room to negotiate. That matters for the number.
Here is the trap to avoid. Pricing on emotion or on what a seller "needs" to walk away with leads to overpricing, and overpricing quietly costs money. That is covered in detail in another post.
A real number instead of a guess comes from a full CMA run on the specific home, with every comparable walked through and an honest range. That is the only way to know what a house is truly worth today.