What Is a CMA, and Why Is It Different From the Number Online?

Almost every seller I meet has a number in their head before I arrive, and it came from their phone. A website looked at their address and produced a value, sometimes with a range, sometimes with a confidence score, always with a lot of decimal places.

Then I give them a different number, and the first question is why.

Here is what the online estimate is doing, what a comparative market analysis does instead, and why the difference is usually the whole conversation.

An online estimate is a formula. It takes public records, your house's recorded square footage, bedroom and bathroom count, lot size and year built, then looks at recent sales in the area and produces a value. It does this for every house in the country at once, without anyone looking at yours.

It is not useless. It is a decent guess at what an average house of your size in your zip code might be worth, and for a tract home in a subdivision where four floor plans repeat, it can land close.

What it cannot see is everything that makes your house yours. It does not know the kitchen was redone in 2022 or that it was not. It does not know the roof is original. It does not know you back to a wall along the 215 or to open desert. It does not know the neighbor's sale it is leaning on was a divorce, a cash buyer, or a house with a pool when yours has none. If the county's record of your square footage is wrong, and they often are, the estimate is wrong by that much before it starts.

It also does not know what is for sale right now. The estimate looks backward. Buyers look at what they can buy this weekend.

A comparative market analysis is the same idea done by a person who has seen the house.

I start with the closed sales that actually compare: the same kind of home, in the same part of the neighborhood, closed in the last few months. Same story count, similar age, similar size, same kind of lot. In a subdivision with repeating floor plans I want your floor plan. In an older neighborhood with more variety I widen the net and adjust harder.

Then I adjust for the differences. A pool, a third-car garage, a casita, a bigger lot, a view, a remodel with dates, an original roof and air conditioner. Each one moves the number up or down against the comparable, and the adjustments are where the experience lives, because a pool is worth one thing to one buyer and nothing to another.

Then I look at what is for sale and pending right now. Those are not comparables, they are competition. If three similar houses are sitting unsold at a price, that price is not the number, no matter what closed in the spring.

The result is a number I believe, with the sales behind it, and how I would price the house if it were mine. That last part is the point. A CMA is not a report. It is a recommendation.

Usually for one of four reasons.

The estimate is using the wrong house. Wrong square footage, wrong bedroom count, a sale on the next street that is not comparable.

The estimate cannot see condition. Your updates are invisible to it, and so are your deferred repairs.

The estimate is looking backward. It weights sales from months ago in a market that has moved, up or down, since then.

The estimate does not know the buyer. It does not know that in your neighborhood right now, single-story sells and two-story sits, or that a house backing the wash takes longer. I do, because I am showing those houses to buyers this month.

Sometimes the online number is higher than mine and the seller wishes I would just use it. I understand that. It is also the fastest way to spend the first two weeks, the best two weeks a listing gets, teaching buyers to wait for the price cut. I wrote a whole piece on what sellers get wrong about pricing, and that is the first thing on the list.

Once you have the real number, there are three ways to list against it. At the number, which is what I usually recommend, because it puts the house in front of the most buyers when their attention is highest. A little above it, when the house has something the comparables do not and you can afford to test that for a week or two. Or a little below it, when you want the widest possible first weekend and are willing to let the buyers set the ceiling. Each one is a strategy with a reason. Picking the online estimate because it is higher is not a strategy.

One more reason the real number matters. When your buyer's lender orders an appraisal, the appraiser builds the same analysis I did, from the same closed sales. A house priced from the comparables appraises. A house priced from a website is where the appraisal comes in low and the negotiation starts over. I wrote a separate piece on that.

Send me the address. Call 702-881-6562 or email JArendt658@gmail.com, and tell me roughly when you are thinking about selling and the things I cannot see from the street: the remodel, the roof, the pool, the view.

You get what I think the house is actually worth, the recent sales I used and why each one counts more or less, and how I would price it if it were mine. No obligation, and no follow-up campaign. If the online number turns out to be right, I will tell you that too.

John Arendt, Realtor, has sold homes across the Las Vegas valley for 20 years, in Henderson, Summerlin, Southern Highlands, Anthem, Boulder City and North Las Vegas.

A comparative market analysis is an agent's opinion of value, not an appraisal. Every house is different.