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Home Buying and Selling: How Comparables are Chosen


Hand pointing to three different wooden blocks with houses on them

Whether you’re selling your home or buying a home, your Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices network professional will provide you with a comparative market analysis (CMA), a computer-generated report that shows you what homes similar to yours are selling for in your area, or how the home you’re interested in buying compares to other homes on the market.


So how are comparables chosen?

CMAs are only available to members of the local multiple listing service, which include licensed real estate agents, brokers, appraisers, real estate attorneys, and local property tax authorities. It takes skill and experience to create a report that can help you choose a listing price range for your home or to help you make an offer on one of the homes you’re seeing.


A CMA can be as narrow as a city block or as broad as a zip code. It can include data on homes for the latest week, month, or six-month period. It can show you homes for sale and those that have recently sold. CMAs can be made specific with search parameters that show only one-story homes, condos, or homes with swimming pools.


You may be pleased or dismayed by what the CMA shows, but you should know that it’s an accurate depiction in real time of current market conditions.


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