Use this eight-step CMA workflow
- Create a subject-property sheet and verify every fact that could affect your search or adjustments.
- Pull a broad first set of recent sales from the same building, subdivision, or immediate competitive area.
- Remove properties that are not credible substitutes, and document why each one was excluded.
- Review active, pending, expired, and withdrawn listings as market context while keeping them separate from the closed-sale pricing calculation.
- Build an adjustment matrix from local market evidence.
- Adjust each comp's sale price to reflect how it differs from the subject.
- Reconcile the adjusted prices into one indicated price and a supported range.
- Prepare a seller report that shows the evidence, assumptions, market competition, and recommendation.
1. Confirm the subject property before pulling comps
A CMA built on the wrong square footage, room count, or property type starts with the wrong search. Hooquest recommends checking auto-populated details against county tax records and asking the seller for supporting documents, such as builder plans or a prior appraisal, when the seller reports different square footage.
- Property type and ownership form
- Address, subdivision, building, unit, and legal description available in your records
- Living area and the source supporting it
- Lot size, when relevant
- Bedrooms and bathrooms
- Year built
- Story count and floor level
- Garage and parking configuration
- Pool and other major exterior features
- Renovations, interior upgrades, and current condition
- View, orientation, waterfront position, road influence, or another external feature
- For a condo: building, line or stack, floor, view, parking, and meaningful unit-specific differences
Record the source beside any disputed fact instead of silently choosing the larger or more favorable number. Hooquest also advises checking local building requirements when counting bedrooms, bathrooms, or finished basement space. Review the completed property sheet with the seller before finalizing the CMA.
2. Pull and screen comparable sales
Begin broadly enough to see the market, but require every final comp to tell you something useful about the subject. Similarity matters more than filling an arbitrary number of slots.
| Factor | How to screen it | When to expand |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Start in the same condo building or single-family neighborhood. Prefer the smallest area in which buyers would reasonably compare the homes. | Expand outward only when the first area does not produce enough credible sales. Note the boundary crossed and any location difference that may require an adjustment. |
| Sale date | Start with the most recent closed sales. | Go farther back when older nearby sales are more comparable than newer sales from a meaningfully different area. Consider whether market movement needs an adjustment. |
| Living area | Bracket the subject with both smaller and larger homes when possible. Hooquest uses plus or minus 250 square feet as one initial screening rule. | Widen the range for an unusual property, but do not assume that every additional square foot has the same value. |
| Bedrooms and bathrooms | Match the functional room count as closely as the available sales allow. | Use a less similar count only when you can support an adjustment or clearly reduce the comp's weight. |
| Age | Look first for a similar construction period. Hooquest describes a three-to-five-year difference as a commonly taught screening rule. | Expand when renovation level, design, and condition make an older or newer property a better substitute. |
| Condition | Read remarks and review photos for renovation level, deferred maintenance, tenant occupancy, repair concessions, or unusual sale circumstances. | Keep a condition-mismatched sale only when you can explain and support the adjustment. |
| Pool and garage | Prefer the same pool and garage configuration before relying on adjustments. | Use paired local sales to estimate differences when matching sales are unavailable. |
| Condo building, floor, and view | Start in the same building, then favor a similar line, floor, view, condition, and parking setup. | If you leave the building, explain why the alternative building competes with the subject and account for material differences. |
Read the listing history instead of relying only on the summary fields. Hooquest recommends looking closely at properties described as as-is, needing substantial work, investor opportunities, or tenant occupied, as well as sales far below their list prices.
3. Decide how many comps to use
Use the genuinely comparable sold properties the market provides. Do not add a weak comp merely to fill a template, and do not discard a strong comp merely because the core table already contains several sales.
- Place the most similar sales in the core analysis.
- Keep additional credible sales in a supporting table so you can see the broader pattern.
- Include fewer core comps when the property is unusual and only a small number are defensible.
- Include more when the area has many close substitutes or when one sale would otherwise have too much influence.
- Bracket the subject with both lower and higher indicators, and with smaller and larger homes when possible.
- Identify outliers instead of letting one unusual sale set the recommendation.
Hooquest favors using all genuinely comparable sales and looking at the median when outliers are present. That does not mean treating every sale equally. Rank each comp by similarity and explain why the closest matches deserve more influence.
4. Review active, pending, expired, and withdrawn listings
After selecting the sold comps, review the other listing activity from the same market. Hooquest recommends using active and pending listings to discuss current competition and checking expired and withdrawn listings for caution or red flags. Keep these categories in a separate market-activity table rather than mixing their prices into the closed-sale calculation.
| Status | What to record | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Active | Record the asking price, days on market, and important similarities or differences. | Use it to describe the competition the seller would enter. Do not treat its asking price as a closed sale price. |
| Pending | Record the available price, days on market, and how closely the property matches the subject. | Use it as current market context while keeping it outside the closed-sale pricing calculation. |
| Expired | Record the listing history, days on market, and relevance to the subject. | Use a similar listing that failed to sell as a caution when evaluating the price recommendation. |
| Withdrawn | Record the listing history, relevant remarks, and why the property matters to the seller's market. | Keep it available as neighborhood context, but do not treat its asking price as an achieved sale price. |
Mark each property as a core sold comp, a supporting sold comp, market context, or excluded. Add a short relevance note so the report shows why a listing matters without allowing active, pending, expired, or withdrawn prices to enter the average, median, or adjusted-price range derived from closed sales.
5. Build an adjustment matrix
An adjustment matrix lists each feature you may need to adjust and the locally supported dollar or percentage amount. Hooquest suggests checking whether your broker already maintains one for your market.
- Living area
- Lot size
- Year built or effective age
- Pool
- Garage and parking
- Bedrooms and bathrooms
- Interior renovation level
- Exterior features
- View, road influence, golf-course position, or another external factor
- Market movement between the comp's sale date and the pricing date
Derive adjustment amounts from local evidence whenever possible. For a pool, garage, bathroom, or view, look for paired sales: similar properties from the same market period where the important difference is the feature being measured. The difference between those sales can inform the adjustment, even if the older properties are not suitable as current primary comps.
Apply every adjustment from the comp's perspective. If the subject has something the comp lacks, add the supported amount to the comp's sale price. If the comp has something the subject lacks, subtract it.
Do not use the feature's installation cost as its automatic market adjustment. The CMA question is how buyers in this competitive market have priced the difference. If the evidence is weak, label the adjustment as an estimate, reduce that comp's weight, and widen the recommended range if needed.
6. Calculate price per square foot without letting it run the CMA
For each comp, divide its sale price by its living area. To calculate an average price per square foot, add the comp figures and divide by the number of comps. You can then multiply that result by the subject's living area as a quick benchmark. This is the method illustrated by 360training.
| Property | Sale price | Living area | Price per square foot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Comp 1 | $200,000 | 1,900 sq. ft. | $105.26 |
| Comp 2 | $250,000 | 2,200 sq. ft. | $113.64 |
| Comp 3 | $190,000 | 2,000 sq. ft. | $95.00 |
| Comp 4 | $210,000 | 2,100 sq. ft. | $100.00 |
| Average | $103.47 |
For a 2,000-square-foot subject, the example produces a benchmark of $206,940. Treat that number as a cross-check, not the final recommendation.
Price per square foot can mislead when the properties differ in lot value, bathroom and kitchen count, condition, view, building, or other features. Hooquest notes that the total sale price per square foot reflects the entire property, not just additional floor area. A larger home also does not necessarily gain value at the same rate for every added square foot.
Hooquest describes one practitioner's rule of using one-third of the comparable set's average price per square foot as a living-area adjustment. That is a rule of thumb, not a universal market rate. Test it against local paired sales and your broker's adjustment guidance before using it.
7. Reconcile the adjusted prices into one conclusion
Reconciliation is not simply choosing the highest comp or averaging every number. It is the step where you decide which adjusted sales deserve the most influence.
- Sort the comps by adjusted price.
- Calculate the median and average as reference points.
- Rank the comps by location, recency, physical similarity, condition, and size of the required adjustments.
- Give the closest matches the most influence.
- Check the separate market-activity table for active, pending, expired, or withdrawn listings that support caution or a more assertive position.
- Choose one indicated price from the closed-sale evidence.
- Set a range that covers reasonable uncertainty without stretching to weak outliers.
- Choose a list-price recommendation separately and explain any difference between it and the indicated price.
Use the median to reduce the influence of outliers, then explain why the closest matches receive the most weight. Keep active, pending, expired, and withdrawn listings as market context rather than adding their prices to the closed-sale figures being reconciled.
The recommended list price can sit within that range or reflect a clearly explained marketing choice. Keep the pricing conclusion and the launch strategy distinct so the seller can see what the comparable evidence indicates and what you recommend doing with it.
Keep a CMA and appraisal distinct
| Document | What it is | Practical handling |
|---|---|---|
| CMA | An agent's comparison of the subject with similar market activity, used here to develop a listing-price recommendation and range. | Show the comp selection, adjustments, market context, assumptions, and recommendation. |
| Appraisal | 360training describes an appraisal as an estimate of a property's market value based on factors that include location and condition, and distinguishes it from a CMA. | Do not present the CMA as an appraisal or label the recommended price as an appraised value. |
8. Build the report the seller sees
The seller report should make the reasoning visible without forcing the seller to decode your working spreadsheet.
- A cover page with the subject address and analysis date
- A short summary with the indicated price, supported range, and recommended list price
- The confirmed subject-property facts and the source of any disputed measurement
- A map or location summary for the selected comps
- A core sold-comp table with sale date, sale price, living area, key features, adjustments, and adjusted price
- A short explanation of why each core comp was selected
- A separate market-activity table for active, pending, expired, and withdrawn listings, including each property's relevance
- A note about nearby properties the seller may recognize but that were excluded from the core analysis
- The price-per-square-foot calculation as a secondary check
- The adjustment matrix or a plain-language summary of the major adjustments
- The reconciliation showing how the comp range became the final conclusion
- Clear assumptions, data limitations, and items still requiring seller confirmation
- A proposed pricing and review plan
Keep the detailed MLS sheets and full neighborhood history available as an appendix. The main report should answer the seller's immediate questions: Which homes were used, why were they used, how were their prices adjusted, what did the other listings show, and how did those facts lead to the recommendation?
Final CMA quality check
- Every subject-property fact that affects pricing has been confirmed or marked as unconfirmed.
- The core comps compete with the subject on location, timing, size, features, age, and condition.
- The analysis brackets the subject where the market provides suitable sales.
- Every excluded property has a short, specific reason.
- Every adjustment has local support or is clearly labeled as an estimate.
- Adjustment signs were checked from the comp's perspective.
- Price per square foot is presented as a cross-check rather than the whole conclusion.
- Active, pending, expired, and withdrawn listings are separated from the closed-sale calculation and include a relevance note.
- Outliers do not control the result without a clear reason.
- The indicated price, supported range, and recommended list price are easy to find.
- The report is labeled as a CMA and does not present the conclusion as an appraisal.
- The seller can see both the evidence and the judgment used to reach the recommendation.
