Real Estate Comps Explained

With the surplus of Miami real estate for sale on the market, a real estate professional has their work cut out for them in terms of finding the perfect deals for Miami real estate and how much similar properties have sold for in the nearby area, often referred to as comparable sales.  Comparable sales are also called comps and there are several methods of finding comparables to be used for retrieving a Miami real estate property’s value.

The MLS is your friend.  If you’re looking for the price of a unit sold in the Ten Museum Park condo or just want basic Miami real estate information, the MLS is your ideal venue since it has hundreds of listings.  If you’re a real estate professional wanting Miami real estate, you likely already have access to this database.

Conduct some research.  Many public records and easily accessible resources like court records and newspaper listings facilitate finding comps.  Not every state has sales information within their newspaper listings or sales disclosure through the courts but for those that do, it’s a good start.  Probably the ideal research for finding Miami real estate is to focus on finding a specific neighborhood and honing in on your Miami real estate knowledge of property values and sales figures.

Use service companies.  This tactic is similar to using the internet for searching through Miami real estate comparables since service companies often offer very comparable information as these websites.  Service companies do differentiate in that they can provide this Miami real estate comp information through other means as opposed to simply being offered via the internet.

Browse the web.  If doing the labor of self research suits you, there is a litany of websites focusing on Miami real estate which often have scores of sales information.  Always make sure that the websites you do visit have the newest Miami real estate information that reflect the most recent real estate market trends as many of them have very obsolete data.