Do you always find similar homes like your target property for sale that sold within the past 3 months? I got a wholesaler that sent me a list of wholesale properties. I tried to run my own comps. It seems like a lot of the properties have not been sold in the past 3 months. Most homes have not been sold in more than a year. Should I even bother looking for comparable sales if all the properties I run comps on keep showing similar homes that have not been sold for more than 3 months.
I ALWAYS run comps. I run comps on prices on props that haven’t been sold yet as well as having been sold recently. If I can’t find anything that has sold in the past 3 months, I stretch it out - but not too far - to at least give me a range. Zillow is a great site for being able to bring up the property you are looking at and then being able to visually see prices/sizes/etc of properties within the area so in times it is more challenging to find comparables, being able to see a wider range and researching a bit larger area helps better than nothing. Otherwise you will be going in blindly and creating larger risk if you don’t know what you are getting into, especially if the area hasn’t had a lot of sales.
Zillow is what I am using now to run comps. I have yet to find a home that sold in 3 months or even 6 months. The comparable properties I have been seeing are the ones that sold either last year or back in 2009. Wouldn’ that be stretching it too far if I was running comps on homes that sold back in 2010 and 2009?
In addition to the local MLS and Zillow (as well as other commercial sites as necessary) I also use the web site of my local Association of County Tax Boards. It lists a crapload of information for every property in the area it covers including private sales.
Give me an example how to look on the web to find the local association of county tax boards. Did you have to pay for the local MLS?
tbodley74:
You could try these links:
http://www.njactb.org/
http://www.realtor.com/
http://www.trulia.com/
I can join my local MLS as an “unlicensed assistant” for $30 bi-annually:
http://www.trendmls.com/Guest/ShowJoinLinkDoc.aspx?linkid=66
Thanks jmd_forest.
Is this link used to run comps?