Weighing in the Factors with Comparable Sales

Terms for investments are everywhere in real estate. You may hear lenders, agents and brokers talking the real estate jargon. If you are searching for a way to be a part of the real estate world for any type of investment, you will want to become familiar with the different terms that are used in real estate. The first one to identify is comparable sales.

Often times, comparable sales will be termed as comps. These will be the basis of your real estate investment and are important to know. If you are looking at a property, always ask what the comps are on the property. Your real estate agent, or you, will then research a variety of factors to compare your property with the others around it. You can find these through various companies, the multiple listing service, (MLS), and even courthouses and newspapers.

Some of the comps that are included are the history of the property, the sales from the past, the sales of the other homes, the demographics of the area, and the different trends that have affected the sales. Anything that will affect the investment that you plan to make on the home is what you will need to look up when considering comps.

Why is it important to look up the comps. By doing this, you will know whether you are making the correct investment or not. Technically, the value of the home should go up. At the same time, the value will need to be the same as the other homes. If you don't have a balance between the historical investments and the neighborhood investments, you could end up paying too much.

When looking at cash flow, you should always begin with the comparable sales. This will give you a good idea about what is happening with the real estate that you are interested in and whether it is worth your time and investment. Finding the comps is the first step to moving over the threshold and into your new home.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bob Schwartz, is a Certified Residential Specialist, CA licensed real estate broker with www.Brokerforyou.com. Bob has over 27 years of residential real estate experience, authored a number of published articles and served as an expert witness for San Diego lawyers. You can contact Bob via e-mail at bob@brokerforyou.com or visit his highly popular San Diego real estate website at: http://www.brokerforyou.com
                                                                                      ------------ 
This work is protected under copyright and may not be published in other works without express written permission from Promotions Unlimited or the following procedures are implemented: Please feel free to publish this article (as long as no changes are made (all hyper-links to remain and not be modified in any way) and the author's name and site URL's are retained) in your ezine, newsletter, offline publication or website. A copy would be appreciated at Click here to email Bob

Back to San Diego downtown real estate article index