How to price a home from sold comparables: a worked example with six sales

Updated November 13, 2026 · 392 words

An asking price is a seller's opinion. A sold price is the market's answer. Whether you're writing an offer or deciding what to list at, the most useful thing you can do is find recent sales of similar homes and adjust them for the differences. Appraisers and realtors call it a comparative market analysis.

This guide walks through one with six hypothetical sales, then shows two patterns in sold data that help with negotiation.

Architecture Houses — Homes on the same street rarely sell for the same price, but they sell within a predictable range.

Step 1: pick comparable sales

Good comparables are the same type of home, in the same neighbourhood, sold in the last three to six months, and close in size, age, and condition. Six is a comfortable number. Fewer than three makes the estimate shaky.

Step 2: adjust each one to your home

Adjust each sale toward the subject home, not the other way around. If a comparable is bigger, subtract value. If it lacks something the subject has, add value.

Grouped bar chart of six comparable sales between $1,180,000 and $1,310,000, adjusted to a 1,420 sq ft subject home, all landing between $1,220,000 and $1,251,000 with an average of $1,239,000 — Raw prices spread over $130,000. Adjusted, they fall within $31,000 of each other.

Comp	Sold	Size	Adjustments	Adjusted
A	$1,265,000	1,450 sq ft	size -$12,000, condition -$15,000	$1,238,000
B	$1,198,000	1,380 sq ft	size +$16,000, no renovation +$25,000	$1,239,000
C	$1,310,000	1,520 sq ft	size -$40,000, garage -$30,000, condition -$20,000	$1,220,000
D	$1,225,000	1,400 sq ft	size +$8,000, condition +$10,000	$1,243,000
E	$1,180,000	1,360 sq ft	size +$24,000, no renovation +$25,000, condition +$15,000	$1,244,000
F	$1,289,000	1,490 sq ft	size -$28,000, condition -$10,000	$1,251,000

When the adjusted prices cluster tightly, the estimate is reliable. Here, a fair value is about $1,240,000.

Step 3: read the market

Histogram of twenty sales by sold price as a percentage of list price, with a median of 99.3% and most sales between 97% and 101% — In this neighbourhood, offers well below 97% of list rarely succeed.

The sale-to-list ratio tells you how much room there usually is to negotiate. Above 100% means bidding wars. Well below 97% means buyers have leverage.

Scatter plot of days on market against sold price as a percentage of original list price, falling from about 101% at five days to about 94% at 85 days — A home that has sat for two months has usually already cut its price, or will.

Where to find sold prices

In BC, sold prices are available through realtors and through some brokerage websites after you register. EstateBlock shows sold-price history on every BC listing it covers, alongside crime stats, school catchments, flood risk, and transit data. Its guide on how to find out a sold price for Vancouver homes explains where the data comes from and how to read it.

EstateBlock, 600 - 777 Hornby Street, Vancouver, BC V6Z 1S4, (888) 428-6808.

Sources and further reading

BC Assessment: Look up assessed values
Appraisal Institute of Canada: About appraisals

Hypothetical sales. General information only, not an appraisal.

Photos (CC0): Architecture Houses by Jo%E3o%20Silas; Architecture Houses by Miki Czetti.