Home Values & Pricing

Why are two CMAs different?

By Steve Lockhart

The short answer

You ask two agents to value the home and two numbers arrive, and the question is not which one is lying, it is which one you can explain. A CMA is a professional opinion, and honest people differ on evidence all the time.

Full answer

Start with the comps. A CMA depends on which homes were chosen as comparable: the area radius, the size range, the time window, and which solds were kept out entirely, a probate, a short sale nearby, a home with an odd story. Different selections drift the value, and the choices are legitimate to weigh. A careful buyer only credits the comps in their own price band; a hungry agent may widen the net and drift the number.

The adjustments drift more. Every comparable needs a shift for the differences between it and your home: condition, updates, lot, floor, view. Those adjustments are the craft and the judgment, and two fair appraisals of the same differences easily move the total by several thousand in either direction, which is exactly the ten to twenty spread sellers see.

And there is a behavioral layer. The CMA serves a purpose: one shades high to win the listing and the conversation, another prices to the evidence to sell fast. The incentive differs and the number follows. Neither is dishonest, but the high one needs a stronger case to hold an offer, and the evidence case, not the charm, should decide the list.

So how do you pick? Compare the logic, not the column. Ask both for the sales, the adjustments, and the reasoning in a page you can read, and then look at whose number survives the market: the days on line, the demand for the band, the appraisal ceiling. The defensible CMA is the one you can hold up in front of a buyer and the appraiser. When a listing is presented with ten points of what if, it is a hope, not a price, so test the hope the same way the market will.

Go a little deeper

Frequently asked

Questions homeowners often follow up on

Which CMA should I trust?

The one you can explain. The higher number only wins if it carries the evidence: the same comps, the same adjustments, the same date range as the lower, and a defense of the difference. When the high number cannot, the defensible comparison is the honest one.

Can two honest agents disagree this much?

Yes, easily. Judgment differs on condition, on comps, and on the market, and a legitimate range of opinion is the mark of a real value. The danger is when opinions become marketing. A paper trail of the logic turns the difference from a guess into a choice.

Does the agent I choose change the outcome?

It can, because the list price sets the table. Choose the agent who can defend the price with evidence and a strategy for the offers, not the one who simply answers with the biggest number. A listing is a position, not a trophy.

The Lockhart Method

Your Home | My Strategy | Proven Results

My strategy: bring both reports to the same table and let the evidence vote. I show you the comps, the adjustments, and the reasoning behind each number, and then we locate where the market actually is. The price we set is the one you can defend to a buyer, an appraiser, and yourself, and that is worth more than the higher figure nobody could explain.

Schedule a Consultation