Until today, the ARV in REIzer's comps panel was a weighted average of what nearby homes sold for. That is a fair start, but it never adjusted a sale for being bigger than your house or having an extra bedroom. An appraiser adjusts for those differences, and so does REIzer now.
Each comp is adjusted to your property
Every sale is adjusted toward your house, one line at a time: living area, bedrooms, full and half baths, lot size, garage, basement, condition, the time since it sold, and any seller concessions. If a comp is better than your property, its price comes down. If it is worse, its price goes up.
Here is one comp. Your house has 1,191 sq ft, 2 beds and 1 bath on a 6,752 sq ft lot. A house down the street with 1,356 sq ft, 3 beds and 1 bath on a 3,790 sq ft lot sold for $311,175 two months ago.
- Time: at the default market-time rate of 3% a year, +$1,585
- Lot: yours is 2,962 sq ft bigger, at $1.50 a sq ft, so +$4,400
- Living area: the comp is 165 sq ft bigger, at $50 a sq ft, so −$8,250
- Bedrooms: the comp has one more, so −$2,500
Net, that is −$4,765, so this comp says your house is worth about $306,400, not $311,175.
Then the comps are weighted
Comps that sold recently, sit close by and needed the smallest adjustments count the most. The ARV is the weighted result, rounded to the nearest $1,000. Next to it you see the median adjusted price, the range, and a confidence score based on how many comps qualified, how big their adjustments were and how far apart they landed.
Only real, recent, nearby sales count
A comp is used only if it sold in the last 12 months within 0.6 miles of your property. The radius widens only when fewer than three comps qualify. Homes still for sale are left out, because an asking price is not a sale. Every comp that is left out is listed with the reason, such as "over 12 months" or "1.5 mi away".
You fill in what the data doesn't have
Public listing data includes size, beds, baths and lot, but not condition, garage or basement. We never guess those. Until you fill them in, they show as unknown and are not adjusted, and the confidence score stays at medium or below.
Rate a comp's condition, mark it renovated, or set one rating for every comp you haven't rated. Then set the condition your house will be in after the work, and each one-grade difference moves a comp by $5,000. Your ratings are saved with the comps.
The rates are yours to change
The default rates are a blend of two real appraisals' adjustment grids, and you can switch to either appraisal's rates or type your own. Below the ARV, a sensitivity line shows what it would be under each set of rates, and what it would be if your house were finished one condition grade better or worse.
The ARV is an estimate to check against what you know about the street. It is not an appraisal.