When we are preparing to get your house on the market for sale we will looking together at a market analysis of your home to determine a pricing strategy.

I will start by looking for the most similar homes that have sold in the recent past (usually 6 to 12 months) to give us guidance on what price a buyer might pay for your home.

Oftentimes, these similar homes (comparable sales) will all fall neatly in line...

House #1 - very similar, sold for $425K

House #2 - a bit newer and a bit larger, sold for $450K

House #3 - a bit older and a bit smaller, sold for $400K

As you might guess, these three comparable sales would suggest that your home will sell for $450K.

But... sometimes the comparable sales don't provide as clear of guidance...

House #1 - very similar, sold for $425K

House #2 - very similar, sold for $415K

House #3 - very similar, sold for $400K

...and...

House #3 - smaller, sold for $475K

House #4 - smaller, sold for $485K

House #5 - smaller, sold for $505K

When we start to see a greater degree of variance in the prices for which comparable homes sold, and when they don't all point to the same general price point for your house, pricing your home can be come a bit more challenging.

Do we pick the most optimistic (highest) comparable sales to price your home?

Do we pick the most conservative (lowest) comparable sales to price your home?

When this happens, we will need to look through the data together in detail to determine which comparable sales we believe are the most comparable, and thus the most applicable in estimating the value of your home in the current market.

It's great when we have multiple data points all converging on a single value for your home -- but it is not always that simple or clear cut.