What is CMA? (Comparable Market Analysis)

What is CMA and How Do I Compare My Home for Sale in Vancouver?

In real estate, CMA stands for "Comparable Market Analysis". What does that mean? This extensive spread sheet gathered from MLS® data, offers every details about properties in comparable to the subject property.
To elaborate, let’s assume you want to know how much is a market value of a similar home in your neighborhood. It is important to understand the meaning of Market Value first. 

Market Value is the value that a ready and willing buyer assigns and paid for a property in that certain market.

To gather MLS® data for CMA, your REALTOR® must gather properties that are similar in criteria as yours and had activities in the same period or a time frame where the market was similar. It is important to know of your current market trend before gathering any data. So if the current market is at a seller’s or buyer’s, relatively finding data that has been sold similar to that. Further, the factors that can help alternate a real estate market are, economy, banking and interest rate, government and taxing. These factors can directly impact real estate market and change consumer purchase power, behavior and confidence.

In addition, to find similar activity in CMA data gathering, lot size, year built, living square footage, style of the home, finishes and quality of the home, shape of the lot, and many other factors such as;
- Garage (dual or single, attached or not attached)
- Size and number of rooms
- Municipal accommodation such as type of sewage, water, gas line, electricity
- Zoning and permits
- Proximity to amenities
And many more factors which influences a buyer’s purchase, is considered.
When gathering this sold data from MLS® charts, your REALTOR®, also can provide, dollar per square footage sold, number of days on the market, average and median sold price, history of price changes, and some other detailed information relating to each property in comparison.

If a comparable property not found, it is possible to gather data from an extended neighborhood then adding and or subtracting dollar value to calculate the value range. It is challenging but not impossible. 

I need to emphasize that CMA and comparable data, are not the only way to analyze a price point. There are other factors to consider:
- Renovation, upgrades or re-build
- Seller motivation
- Area value change in consideration to HPI (Home Price Indexing)
- Sale Ratio analysis
- Future and current development nearby or related to the property

Now you see pricing your home value and finding how much your home worth in today’s market, is not an easy task and requires an extensive analysis and information gathering.
Accurate pricing of a property is a most crucial step in selling a home in any market within metro Vancouver.
If you wish to know your home value, I do have a simple toolkit to get you started. Contact me today