Real Estate Comps: How to Pull Them Like an Appraiser

What Counts as a Real Comp (Most "Comps" Aren't)

A comp is not just any nearby house that sold. Appraisers run every sale through five filters, and it has to clear all five before it counts.

Recency: sold in the last 90 days, ideally. Stretch to 6 months only in slow markets.

Distance: within 1 mile in urban and suburban areas. Up to 5 miles in rural markets where sales are thin.

Property match: same type, single-family to single-family, condo to condo, and within one bedroom and one bathroom of your home.

Size: finished living area within 10 to 20% of yours, and lot size within 20% for single-family homes where lot premiums exist.

Quantity: 3 to 6 qualifying sales. That's enough to triangulate a real range instead of anchoring on one outlier.

A neighbor's sale from 14 months ago tells you almost nothing about what your home is worth today. Neither does a 4,000-square-foot house stacked against your 2,100-square-foot one.

The 7.49% Mistake: Trusting an Off-Market Estimate

Most sellers make the same mistake before they ever talk to anyone: they check their Zestimate and treat it like their price. Zillow's own published accuracy data says don't.

For homes already listed on the market, the Zestimate's median error is small: 2.4%. For off-market homes, it jumps to 7.49%. And your home is off-market at the exact moment you're deciding whether to sell.

On a $400,000 Florida house, 7.49% is roughly $30,000 of uncertainty, in either direction. Redfin's estimate runs a tighter 2.07% median error, but again only for homes already on the market.

There's a second gap. These portals are MLS-sourced, so off-market sales and for-sale-by-owner transactions never show up in their comp sets. County recorder websites catch those sales.

The fix is simple: use Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor.com to build your first list of recently sold homes. Then cross-check against your county's public records before you believe the number.

Adjust Like an Appraiser, Then Compare Your Options

Raw comp prices are a starting point, not a final answer. Here's the standard method: divide each comp's sale price by its square footage, average the price per square foot across your 3 to 6 comps, then multiply by your home's finished area. Adjust for condition next: a renovated kitchen adds $15,000 to $50,000 depending on the market. Apply a monthly appreciation or depreciation adjustment to any comp older than a few months. Once you have a defensible range, the real question is which selling route captures the most of it.

Cash Flow Deals is a Florida real estate investor that connects homeowners directly to vetted FHA, conventional, VA, and DSCR buyers through a novation agreement. Every one of those deals starts with the same comp discipline: recent sales, tight radius, adjusted for condition. Listing-side details run through Silver Door Realty, a licensed Florida brokerage. The buyer pool includes financed retail buyers, not just investors, so the comp-supported retail value of your home sets the number, not a discounted spreadsheet formula. If your own comp pull says your house is worth more than the investor math you've been quoted elsewhere, start at our Florida hub: sell your house in Florida.

Cash Flow Deals is a Florida real estate investor that locks in a net price for a seller's house before repairs are scoped, using a novation-based, flat-fee process arranged through its licensed FL brokerage partner, Silver Door Realty — not a traditional listing, and not a brokerage itself.

Cash Flow Deals turns a strong comp pull into a real seller decision in three steps:

1. Share your comp pull, or let Cash Flow Deals run one, using recency (sold in the last 90 days), distance (about a mile in urban and suburban areas), and size (within 10 to 20% of your square footage) filters, so the number holds up against an appraisal, not just an automated estimate.

2. Cash Flow Deals matches your home's comp-supported value to a vetted FHA, conventional, VA, or DSCR buyer through a novation agreement. Silver Door Realty handles the licensed brokerage side. Your net price is typically confirmed within 24 hours.

3. You compare that number against your own comps and the traditional-listing math, side by side. Then you choose: no repair punch list, no financing contingency standing between you and a closing date you pick.