Condition
A model knows the year the roof was built, not whether it was replaced. It cannot tell an original kitchen from one redone last spring, and those two houses are not worth the same.
The other side of this table
An algorithm has never been inside your house.The buyer’s agent will be.
Every automated estimate is working from public records and nearby sales. It has not seen your kitchen, your roof, or what is behind your back fence. The agent representing your buyer will see all three, and will price accordingly.
What a model misses
Five things that move a price and never reach the data.
What is behind the house
Backing to a road, a retention pond, a treeline, or the rear of a shopping center changes what a buyer will pay. So does the opposite. None of it is in the record.
Layout
Two houses with identical square footage can live very differently. A model counts the number; a person walks the floor plan.
Unpermitted work
A finished basement or an addition that never made it onto the permit record can raise a number automatically and cost you during due diligence. Better to know before a buyer's inspector does.
Which comparable sales get used
This is the part that decides the number. A model takes what is nearby and recent. A person asks which of those houses a buyer would genuinely have considered instead of yours, and adjusts for the differences between them.
How this one works
It is done by hand, which is why it is not instant.
There is no widget on this page that returns a number. A comparative market analysis is a person choosing comparable sales and adjusting for the differences between them, and that takes a day or two rather than a second.
01
You send the address and a little context
When you are thinking of moving, what you have done to the house, and anything a record would not show. That is enough to start.
02
She looks at the house
In person where that is possible, and in detail where it is not. This is the step an automated estimate skips, and it is the step the number depends on.
03
You get a written analysis and a conversation
The comparable sales she used, what she adjusted and why, and a range rather than a single confident number. Then a call to talk through what it means for your timing.
Why the number comes first
Pricing is the one negotiation you cannot redo.
A listing that starts too high goes stale, and a stale listing hands every later negotiation to the other side. The price you choose before anyone sees the house shapes what you can ask for afterwards — which is the argument the sellers page picks up.
Knowing the number early is also useful when you are not selling yet. Plenty of these end with “not this year,” and that is a fine outcome.
Next step
Ask what it is actually worth.
Send the address and what you have done to the house. You will get comparable sales, the adjustments behind them, and a range — not a number from a model that has never been inside.
Start here
Start with the house.
Where it is, when you are thinking of moving, and whether anyone has valued it yet. Then your details.
Step 2 of 3