When it comes to selling your home, knowing its value can help you gauge how to price it effectively on the market. Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) reports can help with this by allowing you to compare your property to other properties recently sold within the area. Comparables have similar square footage, age, conditions, upgrades, and locations. A CMA can be generated with the help of a real estate agent and can act as an informal appraisal before you make things official. Interested in getting a CMA for your property? Continue reading to learn more about the data generated in a CMA and how to understand it.

Data found in a CMA

CMA reports can vary in length and complexity depending on the market and the real estate agent’s business practices. Generally, the type of data found in a CMA includes:

• Active listings – Homes that are currently for sale.
• Pending listings – Formerly active listings that have not closed yet and are in a pending sale.
• Sold Listings – Homes that have been sold within the past 3 months. These are your comparable sales that will be used when appraising your home’s value. If there are not enough sales within the past 3 months, then comps within the past 6 months can be used.
• Expired Listings – Properties that were not sold. This can be due to a number of reasons such as being unreasonably priced, not being marketed, or it was in need of repairs.
• Withdrawn/Cancelled Listings – Properties that were taken off of the market for a variety of reasons. These were also most likely too expensive. In general, expired and withdrawn listings have the highest median prices which made them undesirable along with other potential factors.

Understanding the CMA Report 

Now that you understand the type of data found in a CMA report, it’s time to understand how to use the actual report to your benefit. Once your real estate agent has generated it, look at each comparable and see how it matches to your property. Each comparable listing will include a description, floor plan, number of rooms and bathrooms, square footage, sales price, any dollar adjustments, and the fair market value.

There will be at least 3 to 5 comparables to analyze and this will help you appraise the value of your home. However, a consideration to be aware of is that there may be a difference in value if there were any upgrades or amenities involved. For example, a comp may be very similar to your property but if their property was completely renovated rather than fixed-up, then the value will be much higher than yours. Another consideration would be the property location which can also play a major role in its value. 

Learn More

Overall, a CMA will allow you to set a competitive listing based on the average price the comps were sold at. American Mortgage Resource, Inc. is the premier choice when it comes to loans and mortgage advice. Visit our website to learn more or call (617) 972-8588 to speak with an expert.