What Your Home Is Worth, and How Anyone Knows

A comparative market analysis takes recent closed sales of homes genuinely similar to yours, adjusts for the ways they differ, and arrives at a range. Closed sales are the evidence because they are what a buyer actually paid. What sellers are currently asking is not evidence of anything except what sellers hope.

Ask to see the comparables, not the summary. Look at whether they are the same style of home, roughly the same age of construction, on similar lots, and close enough to be in the same submarket. Ask what adjustments were made and why. An agent who cannot walk you through the reasoning either did not do it or is quoting a price to win the listing, and a price set to win a listing gets corrected by the market a few weeks later.

What this usually involves

• Closed sales as the basis, not active asking prices
• Comparables you can review individually rather than a single headline number
• Adjustments explained in plain terms
• An honest read on where your home sits within its own submarket
• A conversation about listing strategy, not just a number

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