How to Find Comps for My House (and What My Neighbor's Home Sold For)

"How to find comps for my house" and "what did the house down the street go for?" are the same question, and the most honest one in valuation, because it skips the models and the opinions and goes straight to the evidence. Every appraisal, agent's price opinion and online estimate is built on real estate comps, and you can assemble the same evidence in an afternoon.

What makes a sale comparable: distance, time, size, age, condition

A comparable sale is not just a nearby house that sold. The professional standard is Fannie Mae's Selling Guide, the rulebook an appraiser follows on any conforming mortgage. It asks for closed sales that a buyer of your property would have considered instead of yours, and it sets rules for each dimension¹:

• Closed, not listed. The minimum is three settled sales; pending sales and active listings may be added as supporting evidence but do not replace them¹.
• Recent. Sales closed within the last 12 months should be used; where recent sales are scarce, older ones are allowed and the report must explain why. The most recent sale is not automatically the best: the Guide's own example prefers a nine-month-old sale with a time adjustment over a fresh one needing several other adjustments¹.
• Near. The distance to each comparable is measured and reported as a straight line ("1.75 miles NW")¹. What counts as near depends on density: a few city blocks can be a different market; a rural radius may run several miles.
• Similar. Same property type, and close in living area, lot size, age, bedroom and bathroom count, garage and condition.

The reason for this discipline: every difference between the comp and your house has to be priced, and every price you assign is a judgment. Three sales needing small adjustments say more than eight needing large ones. The full guide to what your house is worth walks through every valuation method; this article stays with the one they all rest on.

Where sold prices live: recorder, assessor, MLS, portals and non-disclosure states

To find out what a house sold for, follow the chain of records the price passes through.

The fastest route for most owners: a portal's "recently sold" filter to find candidates, the assessor record to verify each house's facts, the recorder for anything that looks off. Portals repeat whatever the listing said (their value estimates are another matter, see the comparison of online home value estimators); the assessor's data is what the appraiser will use.

How to find comps for my house in 20 minutes, step by step

1. Pin down your own facts first. Open the assessor record for your address (in Los Angeles County by address or Assessor's Identification Number⁴) and note living area, lot size, year built, bedrooms, baths and recorded additions. If your remodel or converted garage is not on record, note the true figures separately.
2. Set the radius and the window. Start with sales closed in the last 6 months within half a mile. Widen to 12 months and one mile only if you have fewer than three candidates; lenders accept older sales only with a reason¹.
3. Filter by type and size. Same property type (detached, condo, townhouse), living area within about 20 percent of yours, similar age band. A 1,400 sq ft bungalow is not a comp for a 2,600 sq ft two-story, even on the same street.
4. Verify each candidate. Check its assessor record for size and year, and the recorder or portal history for the closed price and date². Drop foreclosures, sales between relatives and houses that sold twice in a year.
5. Write the grid. Five columns per comp: distance, closing date, price, size, and the features that differ from yours. Three good rows are enough; five are plenty.

If the price is not on the deed in your state, skip to the non-disclosure section near the end. If you would rather see the grid built for you, the preview of a CheckValue report opens the comparable-sales block for any address before you pay.

Adjusting comps: the grid appraisers use

Raw sale prices are not evidence until they are adjusted. Fannie Mae's rule is that an adjustment has to mirror how the local market reacts to that particular difference: what buyers nearby actually paid extra for a second bathroom or a garage, not a cost figure or a national average⁵. There is no fixed cap on total adjustments, but their number and size must not be the sole test of a comp, and the best comp needs the fewest⁵.

If the comp has something your house lacks, its price goes down by what that feature is worth; if it lacks something yours has, its price goes up. Three adjustments deserve special care:

• Concessions. If the seller paid the buyer's closing costs or bought down the rate, the comp's price must be adjusted for the effect on it, judged by the market at the time of sale; the deduction should equal the price increase the concession bought, and if the data cannot be obtained the appraiser must say why⁵.
• Time (market conditions). A sale from ten months ago closed in a different market. The FHFA publishes repeat-sales price indexes for states, metros, counties and five-digit ZIP codes that show how much prices moved between the comp's closing date and today⁶. Realtor.com's August 2026 summary is a case in point: a national median list price of $424,500, 1.3 percent below the previous August, a median of 60 days on market and 3.6 percent more active listings⁷. In a market that flat, an older comp needs a small downward adjustment or none at all.
• Size. Adjust the difference in square feet at the local market rate, not at the comp's full price per square foot. Why the marginal square foot is worth so much less than the average one is the subject of the price-per-square-foot explainer.

Three comps for a 1958 Los Angeles 3-bed, adjusted to about $915,000

The figures below are a hypothetical example at Los Angeles County price levels, not a real transaction. Subject: a 3-bedroom, 2-bath detached house, 1,480 sq ft, built 1958, 6,200 sq ft lot, one-car garage, average condition. Three closed sales within a mile, verified against the assessor record⁴ and the recorder²:

The adjusted prices cluster between $907,000 and $919,000. Comp A is the strongest evidence (closest, most recent, fewest unknowns), so an indicated value around $915,000 with a range of $905,000–$920,000 is defensible. Two things the example deliberately does not do: average the raw prices ($931,667), which would credit your house with comp A's kitchen and comp C's extra 120 sq ft; or apply comp C's $594 per square foot to your 1,480 sq ft ($879,000), which would penalize you for being smaller. Both shortcuts look precise and are wrong.

The adjustment amounts ($150 per sq ft, $15,000 per garage bay and bathroom, $25,000 for a remodeled kitchen) are judgments supported by what nearby buyers paid, as the Selling Guide requires⁵. Comp C's $10,000 concession is deducted in full on the assumption that it lifted the price by that amount, the Guide's test⁵. Another analyst could defend $130 or $170 per square foot, which is why the honest output is a range, not a point.

Traps: pending listings, flips, distressed and non-arm's-length sales

Five kinds of "sales" routinely poison a comp set:

1. Pending and active listings. A listing price is a hope; a pending price is a secret until it closes. Appraisers may cite them as supporting data, not as one of the three closed comps; the one exception is a brand-new subdivision or condo project with nothing settled yet¹.
2. REO and short sales. A bank selling a foreclosed house, or a lender accepting less than the loan balance, is not a typical seller. Appraisers must flag the financing type as REO sale or short sale¹; for your own grid, exclude them unless your house is in the same situation.
3. Non-arm's-length transfers. Sales between relatives, to a tenant or into a family trust carry prices never tested by the market. The grantor and grantee names on the deed often give them away: same surname, same LLC on both sides.
4. Flips. A house that sold for $700,000 in January and $950,000 in October was renovated in between. Neither price is a comp for an average house.
5. Unverified condition. A portal's "updated throughout" is the listing agent's phrase. Check the photos, or leave the condition adjustment at zero and widen your range.

Buyers should run the same checks on the seller's comps; the guide to telling whether an asking price is fair shows how. Anyone facing an appraisal below the contract price needs clean comps to argue with, as the low-appraisal guide explains.

The comps in a CheckValue report, with distance, closing date and adjustment

CheckValue does the assembly described above for one exact address and shows its work. Three parts of the report matter to anyone hunting comps:

• The comparable sales themselves, each listed with straight-line distance, closing date and the adjustment applied, so you can check every row against the assessor record as this guide describes.
• The official price index behind the time adjustment (for US addresses the FHFA series), with the movement applied to older sales.
• The market tempo, which tells you whether a comp from a faster or slower market needs a haircut.

Each feature adjustment (garage, pool, solar, condition, year built) carries its coefficient and its source in a numbered reference section, the format an appraiser or an appeals board can follow. For a US address the report also names the owner of record from county files, a different question from comps; that data may not be used for credit, employment, insurance or tenant-screening decisions.

It is not a licensed appraisal. Nobody measures your house, and where a lender or a court wants an appraiser's opinion the report is preparation rather than a substitute. The sample reports for Los Angeles, Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Madrid and Rome show the comparable-sales section in finished form.

Non-disclosure states (Texas, Idaho, Montana and others): how to work around them

In the non-disclosure states the deed is recorded but the price is not part of the public record. Redfin's list has ten: Texas, then Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Wyoming, with Missouri and Montana applying it county by county; Redfin puts the total at about a dozen³. Ownership, lot and tax data remain public; the price is known only to the parties, MLS members and appraisers³. Portals there show "sold" without a figure or substitute a model estimate.

Four workarounds, in order of reliability:

• Ask an agent for an MLS sold report. Agents can pull closed prices for a radius and date range in minutes, and many will for an owner who may list later.
• Order an appraisal or a desk review. Appraisers have MLS access and the training to adjust; lenders take this route.
• Use a cited valuation report. CheckValue lists the sales it relies on with distance and date, plus the index and the district average, each with its source.
• Triangulate. Pending listings' asking prices, the county's appraised values (in Texas the appraisal district's, which owners protest every spring⁸) and the FHFA index for the metro or ZIP⁶ bracket a value even without a confirmed price.

Comps for a property tax appeal

The same grid wins property tax appeals, with one change: the sales must be anchored to your county's assessment date rather than to today. Bring closed sales from around that date, adjust them line by line as an appraiser would¹⁵, and set the adjusted range against the assessed value. In Texas the deadline is May 15, or 30 days from the day the appraisal district mailed the notice of appraised value if that comes later (the clock runs from mailing, not delivery)⁸. In Los Angeles County regular assessment appeals are filed from July 2 to November 30 each year, with a $46 non-refundable filing fee⁹. Attach the comps grid or a cited report, not a screenshot of an online estimate. This is general information, not legal or tax advice.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice. Figures and rules carry the year they were published; check the cited source for the current version.

Christian Eckmair

Co-founder, CheckValue · More than 20 years in real estate in Tenerife and Austria · Reviewed by Josef Eckmair MBA

Christian Eckmair is co-founder of CheckValue and of CBDNOL GmbH (Ansfelden, Austria). He has worked in real estate for more than 20 years in Tenerife and Austria – buying, renovating, letting and selling residential property – and writes about home values, buying checks and ownership records.

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