6 minute read
Pricing your home from comparable sales
How to read a set of comps, what adjusts a price up or down, and why the first two weeks matter.
Start with closed sales, not asking prices
Active listings tell you what sellers hope for. Closed sales in the last three to six months, within a mile or so, of similar size and age, tell you what buyers paid. Six good comps beat twenty loose ones. Price per square foot is a useful check, not a formula; a 1,200 square foot home and a 3,000 square foot home in the same neighborhood will not share one.
Adjusting
Compare each comp to your home: beds, baths, heated square feet, lot, age, garage, condition, updates, and location factors like a busy road. Move each comp's price toward what it would have sold for as your home. Where the adjusted comps cluster is your range.
Condition and updates
The data does not know your roof is two years old or your kitchen is original. Recent updates of the things buyers price first (kitchen, baths, roof, HVAC, windows, flooring) justify the top of the range. Deferred maintenance pulls toward the bottom, usually by more than the repair would cost.
The first two weeks
Most showings happen in the first two weeks, when the listing is new in every buyer's saved search. A price above the range in that window costs you the buyers who would have paid the right price, and a later reduction reads as a signal. Pricing inside the range, with room to negotiate, is the usual choice. Pricing at the bottom can produce multiple offers in a tight market.
Updated September 11, 2026. General information for North Carolina and South Carolina sellers, not legal or tax advice.