| name | comparative-market-analysis |
| description | Use when a property must be priced or an offer must be judged competitive — selecting genuinely comparable sales, adjusting for real differences, and producing a defensible value range instead of a hopeful number. |
Comparative Market Analysis
A price is a claim you have to defend — to a buyer, a seller, and eventually an appraiser. This playbook produces a value range that survives all three.
Define the subject first
Write down what you are actually pricing: location, size, bedrooms and baths, lot, condition, age, and the two or three features that most move value in this segment. Every later choice measures against this list.
Select comparables honestly
Pull recent sales that a reasonable appraiser would accept:
- Recent — prefer sales closed within the last few months; the market moves, and stale comps lie.
- Nearby — same neighborhood or a genuinely equivalent one; do not reach across a school-district or waterfront line for a flattering number.
- Similar — comparable size, type, and condition. Three to five strong comps beat ten loose ones.
Reject the tempting outlier. A comp you would not defend out loud is a comp that will hurt you at appraisal.
Adjust for real differences
Adjust each comp toward the subject for the differences that carry money: living area, condition, garage, lot, view, and meaningful upgrades. Adjust the comp, not the subject. Keep adjustments modest and evidence-based — a comp needing huge adjustments was never really comparable.
Read the market, not just the sales
Layer in current conditions: active listings (your competition), pending sales (where the market is heading), absorption rate, and days on market for the segment. A tight, fast-absorbing segment supports the top of the range; a slow one pulls toward the bottom.
Produce a range and a decision
- Output a defensible range, then a recommended point inside it — never a bare single number.
- For a listing: state the price that lists competitively and the range you would defend.
- For an offer: state whether it is under, at, or over market, and by how much.
Close the loop
When the property sells or the offer closes, record the actual against your projection. Feed the delta back so the next analysis is sharper. An analysis that never checks itself against reality drifts into fiction within a season.
