If you are selling your home you might have already had your home's value appraised with something called a compartive market analysis, or CMA for short. Regardless of if you hired a professional, or if you decided to do it yourself, you need to conduct a CMA because it is an important report to give you information on the home's current market.
When you are selling your home, you have probably heard of having your home appraised by doing a market analysis. Whether you have hired a professional to do a home appraisal or whether you have decided to conduct an appraisal yourself, a comparative market analysis or CMA is an important report that enables you to analyze your home within the current market.
What Is A Comparative Market Analysis?
A comparative market analysis is a special report that can be 2 to 50 pages describing how the home was evaluated as well as a breakdown on which comparable homes were used to evaluate your home. Sometimes a real estate agent will do this for free in order to gain your business and other times you will have a home inspector do this during the appraisal. Regardless of how you have it done there are a couple of things that all CMAs are going to have in common.
Active Listings
Active listings show the price of comparable homes that on the market right now. It is the prices of similar homes of your competition. Although it is good to know, it may not always reflect what you as the seller should price your home as. For example, if all these homes are sold at 10% less than their listing price, clearly the sales price of the home is not an accurate reflection of the true market value of each house. Thus, although active listings will be able to tell the prices that potential buyers are seeing, they are not the full story of a sale.
Pending Listings
A pending listing is a house that is still being sold but it is under contract at the moment. These listings can be helpful because it tells you what a buyer has agreed upon, and what the house will probably sell for, but sadly this is not information that you are usually given access to until the house has actually completed the sale process. However if you have a home that is listing much higher then the current pending listings it probably means that you are going to be in for a long wait if you hope to sell your house for that amount of money.
Sold Listings
This type of listing is the most reflective of the home's true market value and it is going to be what the home appraiser uses when they give you your home appraisal. If you look at comparable homes sold in the last 3-6 months you will get an accurate reflection of the current market value. If you look at the listing price to the final sale price you will get a good idea of how the current market is faring and what type of price your house is probably going to end up selling for.
What is a "Comparable Home"?
What is this thing called a comparable home, you may ask? This is a home that is similar to your home in size, condition, and location. To get the best, and most accurate, values you should compare homes with the same number of bedrooms and bathroom, as well as similar square footage, and in the same neighborhood as the home you are selling. If you have upgrades that your neighbors do not they will increase your home's value, and likewise, if everyone has something that you do not then they will decrease the value. The age of the home is also taken into account because an older home does not carry the same value as a new construction. But if you have a home in a historical district it can actually fetch more money then a newer home in the same area.
As you can see, there are plenty of things that can make a comparable market analysis a hefty document for the seller, but the more you know about what commands greater market value, the better you can stacks the odds in your favor to sell your home at its best price.
Is It Possible For Vacant Houses To Hurt An Entire Block?
The process of selling your home can be a very complicated thing, and if you have distressed homes in your area it will make it even harder because they can lower the value of your house. Sadly, in today's market, it is a very real possibility even if your house is in great condition, if you are in an area that has a high number of foreclosures and short sales, that your house will suffer right along with those houses.
Do You Know What Happens During The Foreclosure Process
There are not a lot of people that think about the possibility of losing a house to foreclosure when they first purchase the home. The process of foreclosures is not something that happens right away and in the following article we will talk about the various steps that a lending institution can take during the process.
What Repairs Should I Make To Get The Highest Return On Investment
You can tell that home repairs shows have been gaining in popularity due to the large number of shows that show off expensive, over the top repairs. Even if the upgrade is able to get the buyer to say wow the real question is if the expense will actually garner you more money? You do not want to put lots of cash into upgrading something only to find out that you have actually caused your home to be less marketable to home buyers.
