All About Comps
At some point during a home buying or selling experience, you will come face-to-face with comps.
Comps, or comparables, are regarded as the single-best tool in determining a home's value. They contrast criteria from recently sold properties in a neighborhood, such as sale price, age of house, size, and square footage. Real estate agents use comps to prepare a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) for their clients. Zillow also identifies comps in calculating the Zestimate® and in the My Estimator tool.
Zillow.com's list of comps
Every address has a set of unique comps. Then adjustments need to be made for any differences between homes. At Zillow, we make these adjustments behind the scenes when we calculate the Zestimate for a home. For example, there might be a comp nearby just like yours, but it has one more bedroom and so that house would probably be valued higher. We adjust for this in coming up with your valuation. Ditto for the square footage, etc. In other words, we do the work so you don't have to.
How a home stacks up
Cost per square foot typically is a very important measure in determining a home's value relative to a set of comparable homes. For example, if a home's cost per square foot is $216 and the comps' average per square foot is $291, this will indicate the target home is less expensive compared to the comps. And, if you go by real estate conventional wisdom, the mantra has been: Buy the least expensive home in the best neighborhood because the opportunity for appreciation is much greater.
Three things you can do with the list:
- Click on "See all comparable homes" link to map the top 10 comps. Click on the Home Details pages for each of the homes.
- Print the list of comps, and then do some detective work. Drive or walk by the comparable homes and take a look in person. Be a snoop: Drop by the neighborhood coffee shop or market and talk up that "sweet little thing that sold for a pretty penny." You'll be surprised how much people know and how much they will tell you about a particular house and neighborhood.
- Click on the "Choose and see more comps with My Estimator," link which will take you to Step 4 of My Estimator. In this step you can choose your own comps. The new customized list will result in a new value for the home you are interested in.
For more information about comps, read Picking the Best Comps or Get help in Zillow® Discussions.
