I have been working on some of my own marketing and keep running into the ‘free CMA’. I have never heard of anyone charging for a CMA but does everyone know what a CMA is?
CMA stands for “comparative market analysis” and what that really means is doing some research to determine how much a home is likely to sell for if it were put on the market. We arrive at a price . . which is different than a value . . by finding three comparative homes in the immediate area that have sold recently.
Comparative homes sometimes called “comps” should be as similar as possible to the home being evaluated. Here in the city similar is about having close to the same square footage, layout (one story, two story etc.) the same number of bedrooms, baths and garage stalls.
There is a little more to it than that and my own neighborhood is a great example. I live in the upper town neighborhood of St. Paul just west of downtown. In general home prices in the little pocket where I live are different than they are a couple of blocks away in the Irvine Park neighborhood or in the neighborhood between Smith and St. Clair avenues. We would not compare homes on the North side of the river to those on the South even though they are less than a mile apart because they are in two completely different neighborhoods.
People who own downtown condos know that each building is like it’s own neighborhood and which floor a unit is on impacts the value. Units on higher floors and units with views are usually worth more than units on lower floors or units with less desirable views. corner units and end units are more valuable than center units.
An agent from another town might not know that and the agents who specialize in the entire metro area and all of the first ring suburbs rarely undertand values in all of St. Paul. The homes in the inner city are unique and of different ages and architectural styles. All of that has to be taken into consideration when pricing the home.
a tudor with a red door could be worth more . .
Home owners can get a feel for values by checking the web sites with homes for sale and looking at the homes that were recently sold. Most real estate company and agent web sites have sold homes on them this site included. Just go to the home search and changes status from “actives” to “solds”. If you need help with that like most agents I will do a ‘CMA’ for you for free.
