Good post Dee Dee!
I would say ....
It depends on how your MLS is organized. Here is how I do it (giving away my secrets again, sigh)
Step one: Look up the public record on the subject property. We can get the assessor's record on line. There are links for zoning, plat map, sales history, and building information including room count and square footage. Soon we will also be able to get the property card with the drawing.
Step two: Look up the MLS information. Our MLS keeps listings on file for five (5) years. If it is a refi, you might be able to find an old listing. The listings give us the geographically coordinates so we can do a one square mile grid search around our subject. If nothing shows up on your subject, just do a street search and pick an address close to your subject property to get the MLS coordinates.
Step three: Do a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) for that square mile. This will give you information needed for the neighborhood section of the URAR such as single family price range, age range, days on the market, and percentage of list price to sales price ratio.
Step four: Now I am ready to search for solds to use as comparables. If possible, I use only MLS sales because I know these are usually arm's length and I have a source to verify the data. If I can't find any, I go to the public record for sales not through MLS.
1. Price 0 to 1,000,000
2. Location within that one mile grid
3. Sales date back seven months
5. Size bracket within 10% of the subject property
6. Style ranch to ranch, 2 story to 2 story
7. Garage stalls eliminates having to make a large adjustment
Step five: Once I have a number of comps to choose from, I select what I believe to be the best beginning with the most current sales date and working back. Notice that by doing my steps you will have comparables that meet all of the Fannie Mae guidelines. I like to eliminate the high sale and the low sale, work from the median or mode.
Step six: This will be controversial but I am going to say it anyway. Once I have found the comparables, I then select those that bracket the sales price or refi price of the subject property, some higher, some lower.
Step seven: Always have four or five comps when you go out on the inspection. Photograph all of them. Sometimes when you put them on the grid something will not work out...this way you don't have to make a 2nd trip.
Step eight: Put the comps on the grid, make your adjustments...hopefully you won't have to do too many. Fine tune the grid by making your square footage adjustment last. Round to nearest $500 or $100 dollars in the grid. Round your final value conclusion to the nearest $500 or $1,000.
If you are using Wintotal, use the comps data base to save your comparable and also "weight" your comps. You can move them around in this feature...I like to use the one with the most weight as comp #1.
Lastly, run the Reviewer to see if you left anything out. Run the spell checker to see that you don't have a bunch of mis-spelled words in your report.
I hope you find this helpful!
