Finding comps

[Heather Harrison]

recently, a fellow investor and I were discussing the most difficult aspect of wholesaling. He said that he found it to be finding TRUE comps. Have any of you found that to be the case? Because I am just starting out, I'm not sure how tell the difference between "true" comps and unreliable ones. I do not have direct access to the mls yet and have been relying primarily on sites such Zillow, trulia, BeenVerified, etc. any advice on telling the difference between a good comp and bad comp without using the mls? Thanks, and happy investing!

[Kuba F.]

@Heather Harrison

Picking comps can be both an art and a science.  The best comps are those that meet these criteria:

Sold within the last 6months.

Within the same neighborhood. The boundaries of a neighborhood can be larger streets, tracks, parks, etc.

A house as close as possible in features (beds, baths), size, etc.

Using the same financing method, with an arms-length transaction.

Once you've found the right comps, then you have to make adjustments to them based on all of those features to get an accurate value for your property.

I used to use a spreadsheet for that, until I built this tool: www.reikit.com/comps

The tool uses Zillow data for lookups, but usually I go in with my own set of comps from my realtors then use the tool for adjustments.

The hard part is getting the comps, though, and MLS is always going to be king.

Cheers!

Kuba