Seller Tips: The Advantages of a Comparable Market Analysis

What is a competitive market analysis and what role does it play in the home selling process?

This question is often asked by home sellers when they put their Jacksonville home on the market. If you are working with a real estate agent, he or she will likely use a competitive market analysis, often referred to as CMA, to determine the listing price for your home.

A CMA can be a short, one or two-page document, or it can be a rather lengthy and in-depth document. The detail and size of the CMA for your Jacksonville property will largely depend on your agent. However, most CMAs detail the following information:

Active Listings – Active listings are essentially all homes that are currently for sale in your area. The active listings you and your agent will likely focus on are your competition, or homes that are similar as your home.

Pending Listings – Pending listings are homes that are currently under contract. This can provide you and your agent with valuable information regarding the length of time that homes are on the market in your area, as well as their general listing prices.

Sold Listings – Sold listings – those that have sold in the last, six months - will be used in a CMA because they are a great way to compare listing prices compared to final prices.

Off Market/Canceled Listings – The listings in this category may also provide you and your agent with valuable information. Although these listings may have been removed for any number of reasons, they are generally removed because their listing price was too high. Again, this may provide incredibly valuable when deciding upon the listing price for your Jacksonville home.

Expired Listings – This group of listings, like off-market listings, may prove to be extremely beneficial because they detail homes that did not sell before the expiration of their contract. Again, this is likely due to overpricing.

Date: 2009-07-28 13:48:00
Views: 454