Now that the market is so hot and you see everywhere how home prices have shot up, you may be curious about just how much equity you now have in your home.
And the best way to determine that is to do a CMA.
This blog is all about the process and the elements in a CMA so that when I send you one, if you so desire, you’ll be able to see what the heck you’re reading.
So the first thing I do before seeing a home and meeting with the homeowner that wants to know the value of their home is to start the framework of a CMA. and to do that, I’ll need some basic information about the home, either from the homeowner or from public records.
It Starts With A Search of Similar Homes
Then I sign into the mls the multiple listing system. that’s where realtors put all their properties. and I do a search of all the recently sold, active, and under contract homes with similar square feet and acreage and also that are nearby your home.
Homes Are Plugged Into The CMA Worksheet
Once that list is compiled, those homes are plugged into the CMA worksheet so I can make adjustments, either add value or subtract value depending on how your home compares to each home on the list.
So, for example, if your home has a two car garage and the comparable home has a one car garage, then value would be added to your home for that extra garage space.
Then just go down the list. do the same thing, compare each feature and adjust value for each home on the list. and after doing that, the bottom numbers show the adjusted value and how accurate that number is depends on how many of the features can be compared and adjusted for.
Some of the features can be usually found in public records like square feet, acreage, that sort of thing. some of them will require seeing the home, things like property condition, the quality of the amenities – things like that. so without seeing the home, the line to make an adjustment for those features will be blank and the more blanks there are, the less accurate the cma will be.
The More Details About Your Home, The More Accurate Is The CMA
So it starts out with a broad range of value and then as more features are adjusted for, the less broad it becomes. But a broad range of value may be adequate if you aren’t thinking of selling and you don’t want to spend the time to have a realtor in your home. And you just want a general idea of value, see what home similar to yours are selling for, how long it takes to sell, that sort of thing. But if you are thinking of selling within a year, an accurate CMA is a good idea. so you can better estimate the amount of money you’ll walk away with from a sale.
The CMA is a total of about 15 pages. it has details about all the comparable homes, how long they took to sell, the list price compared to the sold price, the average of what they sold for, average price per square foot. It has a lot of good information. The price recommendation page sums it all up and gives the range of the adjusted values. and like I said, the more information about the subject property, the more accurate that range is going to be. And if you’d like this information about your home, there’s a page on our website.
No obligation. A CMA is also useful for a buyer so you can determine the value of the home you’re considering buying.
