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The best way to accurately determine your house's FMV is by using a written comparable market analysis (CMA) to see how your house compares to other houses like yours that have either sold recently or currently are on the market. If you hire a real estate agent to sell your house you can use these CMAs to fine-tune your asking price.
The 'Recent Sales' section of the CMA helps establish the FMV of your house by comparing it to all other houses that .
- Are located in the same neighborhood as your house
- Are of approximately the same age, size, and condition as your house
- Have sold in the past six months
Houses meeting these criteria are called comps, which is short for comparables. Depending on the date you started looking at houses for sale in your neighborhood, you may not have visited all the sold comps. No problem. A good real estate agent can show you listing statements for the houses you haven't seen, take you on a verbal tour of every house, and explain how each one compares with your house.
The 'Currently For Sale' section of the CMA compares your house to neighborhood comps that are currently on the market. These comps are included in the analysis to check price trends. If prices are falling, asking prices of houses on the market today will be lower than sale prices of comparable houses. If prices are rising, you'll see higher asking prices today than sale prices for comps that sold three to six months ago.
