What Is My Home Worth?

No two homes are identical, especially in La Jolla. This often makes choosing a sales price or offer price for a home challenging. That’s where the comparable market analysis, or CMA, can be useful. Request your CMA today and find out the true value of your home!

What is a CMA? 

The Acronym of Comparative Market Analysis

The CMA is a side-by-side comparison of homes for sale and that have been recently sold in the same neighborhood and price range. Then this data is further sorted by categories such as single-family, condo, bedrooms, baths, zip codes and many other factors.

The purpose is to show fair market value based on what other buyers and sellers have determined through past & pending sales transactions.

How is the CMA created? 

CMAs are generated by a computer program supplied by your real estate agent’s multiple listing service (MLS). The MLS is available to licensed members only, including brokers, salespeople, and appraisers, who pay dues to gain access to the service’s public and proprietary data. This includes tax roll information, sold transactions, and listings input by all cooperating MLS members.

Listing agents have a choice to generate CMAs for their sellers and buyer’s agents can do the same-so both sides know what current market conditions are for the homes they’re interested in comparing.

How accurate are CMAs? 

The CMA is a here-and-now snapshot of the market, based on the most recent data available but it can instantly be rendered obsolete by a new listing, or change of status in a home with the same criteria. Why?

The market is constantly changing – new listings, pending sales, closed sales, price reductions and expired listings. 

CMAs can vary depending on the knowledge and skill of the person inputting the search parameters. That means some features may or may not be included. As informative as the CMA is, it should only be used as a tool and should not substitute for your real estate professional’s knowledge and advice.

Plenty of sellers have visited online home valuation sites such as Zillow, Trulia, eAppraisal, only to be disappointed at the perceived value of their homes. Most sellers are pleased when the values appear higher than they expected but many online valuations come in lower.

Online Valuations Estimating a home’s market value is far from an exact science. What these sites attempt to do is provide greater transparency to home buyers and sellers by making data derived from public records, more…accessible. They publish what you paid for your home and how much you pay in taxes. Many have satellite views so accurate they can spot your cat laying on the front porch. :)

How do they do it? 

Home valuation sites contract with major title companies such as First American to obtain county tax roll data. All property is registered with the county for property taxing purposes. They also find ways to become members of local multiple listing services, which are either subsidiaries of real estate associations or owned by local real estate brokers. Between tax roll data and listing data, home valuation sites apply their own secret sauce, or algorithm to come up with “zestimates” or approximate values of what homes are worth.

Sometimes the results are spot on, but they can also be terribly inaccurate. First, transaction data has to be recorded with the county, which could take weeks. Although, what alters the algorithm most is that properties not currently on the market are included in the data. The algorithms can’t possibly show whether or not a home has been updated, how well it’s maintained or esoteric values such as curb appeal and views and upgrades. For that reason, online valuations should be used only as one of many tools to estimate a home’s value.

ARE YOU LOOKING FOR THE VALUE OF YOUR HOME?

We can help! A comparative market analysis, or CMA will show you the most recent listings and sold comparables in your immediate neighborhood, accurate to the hour or day at most.

REQUEST YOUR CMA HERE

Include your property address and contact information in the request above.
If you know anyone looking to sell in La Jolla be sure to share this helpful information with them.

Have a question? TWEET US @TeamSchuo1

As your full service REALTOR® specializing in the beautiful city of San Diego, California, it is my personal goal to provide you with exceptional service. Here is where you will find articles on my personal experiences and Real Estate resources. My local expertise backed by one of the few organizations entrusted to use the world-renowned Berkshire Hathaway name, brings to the Real Estate market a definitive mark of stability, strength, quality and innovation.
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