< User Guide > Comparable Properties Tool
- Comparable Properties Intro and Quick Start
- Sections Details and Calculations
- Data Export
- View Settings
Comparable Properties Intro and Quick Start
What is Comparable Properties tool
Comparable Properties tool can be used for market properties analysis: it helps real estate professionals to quickly evaluate the property’s potential market price by examining sales data for comparable properties in the area. The User can check the default available data or customize settings to compare the prices filtered on specific properties' characteristics. Either way will give you a quick estimate of a properties market value in only a few seconds.
Choose this tool if you need to gauge the market in a specific region and make sure your suggested sale price for the property aligns with the market state. You can also use this data in your offers and prospective client interactions: share proposals to potential clients suggesting them your services and accurate real estate prices (which are based on real market data analysis!).
To work with Comparable Properties tool, you first need to be on a property report for the property you would like to evaluate. This will be the subject property (check here and here for help finding your subject property). From the Property report page, go to reports section on the right and click Comparable Properties:
Comparable Properties overview
Comparable Properties page includes the sections with the property information (subject property data is from Property report you previously viewed), the map where the property and its comparables are displayed. Below that are the projected sale price which is calculated based on compared properties' data, and calculated statistics, which includes numbers available in our data calculations based on sale prices and property details of comparable properties listed below. The Comparison Criteria show what filters were applied/customized to generate the list of comparables properties below. By default the comparable properties listed will be of a similar land use and general similarity as the subject property:
Sections Details and Calculations
Subject Property
Subject Property section gives a high-level property overview about the address, last sale and price details, and the info about the property and the building itself.
Map Section
The Map displays the location of the property itself (red icon) and the properties used for the comparison analysis (blue icons). The number of the item indicates the property number in the Comparable Properties list at the bottom of the report. If you remove the property from that Comparable Properties list (below) it will be removed from the map.
Projected Sale Price
Projected Sale Price is the estimated or the most likely sales price based on existing market conditions for the property. It includes the median value and the range. The estimation includes two types of prices: the prices differ by the calculation methods, but for both methods the properties data from Comparable Properties list is used. The Estimated Range Based On Price per SF calculation is a simple average of the values based on the actual sale price and recorded building living area. The calculation of Estimated Range Based On Value Ratio is based on value ratio (VR) and provides an average and range of values. The VR is determined using the most recent assessor's valuation (Market Value) compared to the most recent sale price (Sale Price), check Statistics About Comparable Properties section below for the details.
Important: Both methods of determining projected pricing are valuable. If your list of properties are very similar to the subject property, Price per SF is very reliable and easy to understand. If your subject property doesn’t match so well, Value Ratio is often more reliable.
The Projected Sale Price data is a customizable base on your local knowledge and research into properties. The values adjust to your settings: the re-calculation happens as soon you change the number of Comparable properties list by removing property there or by narrowing/extending the list of properties in Comparison Criteria section. The button X is used to hide the section (the visibility can be restored in Show Report Sections settings).
Here is an simplified example how the values in Statistics and Projected Sale Price are calculated: a subject property (or the property you’re interested in) is 1000 sq ft, with assessor valuation of $200,000 (Market Value). iMapp finds only one comparable property, which is 1200 sq ft, with assessor valuation of $250,000 (Market Value), but sold for $275,000 (Sale Price) six months ago. The Market Value Ratio for this comparable property will be calculated: $275,000/$250,000 or Sale Price/Market Value and is 1.1. So in the column MV Ratio you’ll see 1.1 value (this implies comparable properties are selling for 10% more than assessor valuation). Then we apply this ratio to the subject property with $200,000 Market Value, so the Projected Sale Price based on value ratio will be $220,000. Alternatively, you can use the number from price per square feet column ($/SF), which is $229 per square feet for comparable properties (it was calculated by $275,000/1200 or Sale Price/Building SF). So Projected sale price for subject property based on price per SF will be calculated: $229*1000 sq ft or $/SF*Building SF and is $229,000. Check the section Projected Sale Price to see Estimated Range Based On Value Ratio and Estimated Range Based On Price per SF calculations for your subject property. Important note: if there are more than one comparable property the calculations become more complicated!
Statistics About Comparable Properties
The section Statistics About Comparable Properties provides additional context and analysis based on the group of comparable properties matching your criteria and listed below. This section displays the calculated values for 5 parameters: Sale Price, Building SF, Market Value, $/SF, MV Ratio. Each parameter includes high, low, median and average numbers. Sale Price is a real amount of money which was paid for the properties*, it is displayed as price ranges (high-low, median, average). The data for this parameter is taken from properties sales information, which is available for the items from Comparable Properties list at the bottom of the report. Building SF is a living area** of the property in square feet, so you can see what is the living area for the properties with these price ranges. Market Value shows the ranges which indicate the value estimates created by the county appraiser's office (sometimes called Just value or Just Market Value). This is the price the county thinks the property should sell for on the open market and it is used as part of calculating property tax levies (the accuracy of these vary, some appraisers might undervalue all properties by a predictable ratio). $/SF stands for the price (real amount of money) paid in USA dollars per square feet, and is determined as Sale Price/Building SF***. MV Ratio, or Market Value Ratio, is calculated taking into account Sale Price (sold) and Market Value (county): Sale Price/Market Value. For example, a MV Ratio below 0.950 signifies that the property sold for less than the county’s Market Value. A ratio of over 1.0 indicates it sold for more than the county would have indicated. A very high Value Ratio may indicate a property that has been split, or improved since the County Assessor's office assigned the market value.
* The numbers are only for market based sales (not inheritance, family members purchase, or other transfers)
** If there is no data available for living area in the county, the SF of total area is taken
*** If it is a Vacant land (i.e. there is no building on the land), the $/SF is calculated as Sale Price/Land square feet
The statistics values adjust to your the changes in Comparison Criteria and in Comparable Properties sections: if you add/remove properties from the list in Comparable Properties section or/and specific characteristics in Comparison Criteria, the Statistics will be re-calculated immediately. Use these settings to get more precise price predictions for your specific property. Click “Update Criteria” to ensure the Statistics and Comparables list have been regenerated.
Comparison Criteria
Adjustable Comparison Criteria allows users to expand or narrow the number of properties matched and used for all comparison calculations (including averages values and estimated prices ranges) by specifying the characteristics of the properties which should be taken into account for comparison. Click on each criteria to see available settings in the drop down and select the one you’re interested in: as soon you make a selection the system will hide the properties which don’t match the setting and re-calculate all values automatically. The properties removed from comparison will be greyed out in Comparable Properties section.
Important: if your criteria start out too narrow, you may find no Comparables that match. To get more “comparable properties” in this list, you can set these criteria to a wider area, a longer time frame, with many criteria set to “Ignore”. (Eg. Ignore Lot Size, Ignore Bedrooms, Ignore Bathrooms). If you find many comparables, you can start to narrow those criteria down.
Note: This report includes a maximum of 30 matches at a time. If there are more than 30 matches, or if some matches have notable differences from the subject property despite matching criteria, the less similar matching properties may be removed from the Comparables Property list. This may be confusing if a user knows of a recent sale in the area that isn’t showing…..often that sale just isn’t a very close match to the Subject Property. Adjusting Criteria may allow you to reintroduce some of those missing Comparable properties.
When you’re changing the Criteria parameters, iMapp still uses the same list of Comparable properties for calculations: if you get 30 properties in your list and after changing the parameters in Comparison Criteria 25 were hidden and only 5 left, so the system will use only these 5 matching properties for the calculations. If you want to update Comparable Properties list to get more items which match your parameters, click the button Update Criteria in Comparison Criteria section. Comparable Properties list will be updated and if there are more properties which correspond to your selections you’ll see new items added to the list.
Once the Comparison Criteria were set up to custom, next time you open Comparable Properties they will not set back to default, but your previously set parameters will be used.
Comparable Properties list
The list of recently sold, similar properties used in this report are listed on the Comparable Properties list at the bottom of the report. These are the properties that match your Comparison Criteria most closely.
When you select the Comparable reports, the system automatically generates a list of most suitable properties for comparison and when the report is opened, you can see both the list and comparison calculations, which were done using the data from this list. You can examine this list to determine how valid they are as comparisons for your analysis. You can also click on the Parcel ID number of any property to see the full report for it. The report will be opened in a separate tab, thus it will not interrupt your work on comparison properties.
From this Comparables, list you can further control what properties are used for analysis and calculations. You can exclude certain matches using the checkboxes to remove the inappropriate property(s) and re-calculate the sales estimations and statistics without its data. This can be helpful is there are certain matches that you can tell are not similar to your subject property (eg, a neglected or rehabbed property, or very high end remodeled property). When a property in the list is unchecked, it will be moved to the end of the list and greyed out, and removed from the map. You can click on it again from the list to reinstate it, if desired. To organize the list and it’s data for analysis, use filters: you can change the order of the list depending on your priorities.
Data Export
To export the data you get in Comparable Properties, use the right side menu options, which include Save PDF, Print, Download and Email.
Save PDF
Save PDF option allows you to save the report in PDF format: you’ll get the PDF file which looks exactly like the iMapp comparable properties page. Print is easy and fast way to print out the comparison data with selected layout and number of pages (click drop down More settings if you want to choose paper size, margins and other print settings). Again, the printed page looks exactly like iMapp page. Note that unchecked properties from Property List section will not be added to the exported reports files.
If you want to share a web version of the report with your partner or with the client, use E-mail option: the report will be added to the email as a link, which will be active for the next 30 days. This customized emailed report is available for external, non-iMapp users without any additional login or verification. When the option is clicked, you’ll see the pop-up with the fields to edit, including recipients email (or emails, use comma to add more than one), subject and the text (in case you want to add comments and notes to your email). Check the box Send CC to myself if you want to get the email too, making sure it was sent to the recipient (note, that the emails will come from emails@propertykey.com, so you may need to add that address to your contact list to ensure that the message doesn’t get to spam).
Download
The Download option differs from Save and Print by data export formats and the exported data structure: saving data in CSV or in CloudCMA Zip gives an opportunity to download and use it later in any external system. If CSV is selected, the data is saved as a CSV table with a list of properties found for comparison and the parameters of these properties (such as state, zip code, sale price, market value, rooms, etc.). If you choose Zip option you’ll get an archive file with CSV (with the same data as for CSV export) plus the pictures. For both options you can include the property you’re comparing with to the table’s data selecting Include Subject Property in Download checkbox.
View Settings
Show Report Section
If you don’t need some of the sections for you comparable analysis, or want to print a slimmed down version of the report, use Show Report Section settings: uncheck a checkbox and the matching section will be hidden (check the checkbox again to display the section on the page). Check also the map display options: you can hide the map or select small/large view:
To overview all interesting iMapp features to use, check our Quick Start Guide. If you need ideas on how to work with search results and set up your own marketing strategy with iMapp, see Prospecting and Direct Marketing guide.