A price is a decision. You see the evidence first.
This is how I price a home in Maryland and Washington, DC: the 21-page Seller Pricing Analysis I build for one address before we ever talk about a number. Where each figure comes from, what it changes about the plan, and how the whole report gets checked. It is not an appraisal. It is the evidence a careful owner would want before a decision this size.
A list price is not a lookup. It is a decision.
The usual way to price a home is to pull three recent sales, split the difference, and call it a market analysis. It takes an hour. It also leaves out most of what decides whether your home goes under contract in two weeks or sits for two months: how many homes near yours failed to sell at all last year, which months buyers actually sign, what a finished basement is really worth on your street, and whether the listings competing with yours started too high.
So I do it differently. I pull every listing near your home, not a handful. I measure the market before I measure the house. I value the house five separate ways and show you where the methods agree. Then I write the plan down before launch, including what we do if the first two weeks go quiet. You get all of it on paper.
You see the numbers before we pick a price, and you keep the report either way.
Michael WadeNot an appraisal. A Seller Pricing Analysis is a broker's opinion of value built for one purpose: choosing a list price and a plan. An appraisal is an independent opinion prepared by a licensed appraiser, usually for a buyer's lender, and the appraiser's judgment is their own. The analysis is designed to land close to where an appraiser is likely to land. It does not replace one, and I am not an appraiser.
Every listing near your home. Not a handful of comps.
A good answer starts with a complete dataset. Before anything gets calculated, I export the records and read them. Six sources, each with a job.
Every listing, every outcome
Closed, active, pending, expired, withdrawn and cancelled listings near your home, usually within about a mile. The failures matter as much as the sales. A neighborhood where a third of the listings quietly expired tells a different story from one where everything sold.
Comps drawn the way buyers shop
If a highway, a parkway or a major road divides the area, I pull the comps on your home's side separately, because buyers shop that way. A sale across the highway can sit a half mile away and still belong to a different market. The other side appears for context, labeled.
MLS history and county records
Your home's own listing history, plus the county's record of square footage, lot size, year built and assessment, and what you tell me about updates and their years. Where the records disagree, I say so rather than pick the friendlier number.
Where prices sit right now
From RPR (Realtors Property Resource): your ZIP code's median estimated value and its year-over-year change, months of supply, and median days on market. This is the backdrop the comps sit against.
Buyer demand, by ZIP, monthly
A monthly read on how many buyers are active for homes in your ZIP code. Demand decides how much pricing room you have. Strong demand forgives a slightly ambitious price; weak demand does not.
The region against the country
The FHFA House Price Index for your metro division against the U.S. figure over one and five years, and the current Freddie Mac 30-year rate. Neither sets your price. Both explain what buyers are paying for money and whether our region is leading or trailing.
Three parts. The market, the home, the plan.
The order matters. I measure the market before I measure the house, because the same house is worth different things in a strong seller's market and a soft one. The plan comes last, built on both.
The market
- Ten years of price per square footMedian price per above-grade square foot, year by year, so we price to today and not to a memory.
- Buyer demand nowThe T3 index for your ZIP, with the RPR value, supply and speed figures.
- Odds of a saleClosed sales divided by everything that tried, over two years.
- Contracts by monthTwo years of signings, to find the peak windows.
- Speed and disciplineMedian days on market, the 14-day share, sale-to-list, price cuts, concessions.
The home and the sales
- Aerial and lot-line viewThe lot and the setting from above, the way a buyer sees it on a map.
- The facts and the conditionSize, beds, baths, parking, updates, and what buyers see when they walk in.
- The comps, adjusted line by lineOrdered by similarity, each with its straight-line distance.
- Fair market linesRegression lines from 12 and 6 months of closed sales, each drawn two ways.
- The competitionWhat is active and pending now, and what starting too high cost the homes that did.
The plan
- Price by conditionAs-is, refreshed, renovated, each with "sold like it" evidence.
- Three ways to priceDraw the most buyers, balanced, or test the top of the range.
- Approximation of value on one scaleFive methods side by side; the overlap is the range.
- The short answerValue range, recommended list price, expected days to contract, launch week.
- The day-14 and day-21 ruleWritten down before launch, with the net proceeds at the recommended price.
Measure the market before you measure the house.
Each number in Part One answers one question and changes one thing about the plan. Here is what they are, and why a seller should care.
Price to today, not to a memory
I chart the median price per above-grade square foot near you, year by year, for ten years. Owners tend to anchor on what a neighbor got in one particular year; the chart shows whether that was a peak, a trough, or just a year. What it changes: the rate behind every square-foot adjustment in Part Two, which is the trailing-12-month figure, not a ten-year average.
How many homes that tried actually sold
Closed sales divided by closed plus expired, withdrawn and cancelled, for the prior 12 months, the most recent 12 months, and both years together. My benchmarks: 70% and above reads as a strong seller's market, 60 to 69% as balanced, and under 60% as the buyer having the upper hand. What it changes: how much room there is to test the top of the range. Under 60%, a "test" is usually a price cut waiting to happen.
When buyers actually sign
Two years of contract dates by month for your side of the area. Most Maryland and DC neighborhoods have a window where signings cluster, and it is not always spring. What it changes: the launch week, and the expected days to contract if we launch outside the window.
Median days on market and the 14-day share
Median days on market for each of the last two years, and the share of homes under contract within 14 days. If most homes near yours went under contract in two weeks, a listing still sitting at day 20 is sending buyers a signal. What it changes: the day-14 decision point in the plan is set from this number, not from a rule of thumb.
Who got their asking price and who did not
The share of sales that closed at or above the original list price, the share that cut price before selling, and the median sale-to-list ratio. What it changes: whether a "test the top" strategy has any track record on your street, and how much weight the renovated-tier premium earns.
How often sellers paid toward buyer costs
How often, and roughly how much, sellers near you credited the buyer at closing. A credit is a price cut that does not show up in the sale price. What it changes: the net proceeds estimate, and every sale price in the comp grid, which is adjusted for credits before anything else.
Your home, the sales, and the math between them.
Part Two starts from above: an aerial and lot-line view, so we are looking at the same setting a buyer sees on a map before booking a showing. Then the facts, the condition, and the sales that count.
Comps are ordered by how close they are to your home in finished size and price, then by recency, and each carries its straight-line distance from your door. A sale from eleven months ago that matches your home in size and finishes is a better witness than last month's sale that is 600 square feet larger.
The adjusted comp grid
Every comp goes through the same adjustments, in the same order, on paper. You see the lines, not a summary. These are the adjustment types; the rates come from your market's trailing 12 months of sales, not from a national rule of thumb.
| Adjustment | What it does | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|
| Seller credits | Subtracts any seller-paid credit from the sale price before anything else happens. | The buyer paid the net figure, not the headline. |
| Above-grade square feet | Adjusts for the size difference at the trailing-12-month price per above-grade square foot. | Above-grade space is what buyers and appraisers price first. |
| Finished lower-level square feet | Adjusts at a lower rate than above-grade space. | A finished basement adds value. It does not add main-level value. |
| Full and half baths | A set adjustment per full bath and a smaller one per half bath. | Bath count moves buyers more than almost any other room count. |
| Garage spaces | Per space, with garage, carport and driveway treated differently. | Covered parking carries a premium, and the premium changes by neighborhood. |
| Fireplaces | A modest adjustment per fireplace. | Small, but buyers notice it and appraisers adjust for it. |
| Condition | A labeled adjustment (as-is, dated, refreshed, renovated) with the reason written next to it. | Condition is the biggest judgment call in the grid, so it is never hidden inside a number. |
| Lot | A labeled adjustment for lot size, usable yard, privacy, or a busy road. | The lot is the one thing about a home you cannot change. |
| Similarity weight | Weights each adjusted comp by how close it is to your home in size, price and date. | The best witnesses count the most. |
| Time | None when the ten-year chart shows a flat trailing year; applied only when the market has clearly moved. | Adjusting for time in a flat market invents a trend that is not there. |
Fair market lines
A comp grid is eight homes and a set of judgments. A fair market line is every qualifying sale in the window and no judgment at all. I plot every closed sale from the last 12 months by finished square footage and sold price and fit a regression line through them. Where your square footage meets that line is what the market has been paying for a home your size, before any adjustment for condition. This is the conventional window, the set of sales an appraiser for a conventional lender tends to look at.
A second line uses the last 6 months only. FHA and VA appraisers tend to lean on the most recent sales, and many buyers in this region use those loans. If the 6-month line sits below the 12-month line, that is a warning about where an FHA or VA appraisal might come back, and it belongs in the report, not in a surprise three weeks after contract.
Each line is drawn two ways: by total finished square feet, and by above-grade square feet only. A large finished basement flatters the first and not the second. When the two disagree, that is the truth about your basement, and we price with it in view. A finished basement never hides the truth.
What stays out
- REO and short sales. Bank-owned and short sales are priced to move, not to measure the market.
- Non-arm's-length transfers. Sales between family members, estate transfers at nominal prices, and anything else that was not a negotiation between strangers.
- New construction, multi-unit and land. Different buyers, different math.
- Older sales. Anything closed before the 12-month window appears only in the appendix, labeled for context, and never on a line or a map.
The competition
The last pages of Part Two look sideways instead of back. Every active and pending listing a buyer for your home would also tour: asking price, days on market, finished size, beds, baths, parking, and one plain line on what buyers see in the photos. Your home sits in that table as a row.
Then a plain accounting of the homes near you that started too high: what they asked, how long they sat, what they cut to, and what they finally got as a share of their original price, with the ones still unsold counted separately. Nobody enjoys that table. In my experience it is the most persuasive page in the report.
Five ways to find the value. Where they agree is the range.
Part Three turns the evidence into a decision. It starts with the condition you plan to sell in, because the right price for a refreshed home is the wrong price for the same home as-is.
Price by condition
As-is
Sold with what it has. Priced against the nearby sales that also sold as-is, with the "sold like it" comps named. Usually the fastest path and the lowest number, and sometimes the right call when time matters more than the difference.
Refreshed
Paint, floors, fixtures, a deep clean, staging, and the repairs a buyer's inspector would flag anyway. Priced against the sales that presented well without a full renovation. Most of my recommendations land here, because the spend tends to be small against the difference in what buyers paid.
Renovated
Kitchen and baths done. Priced against the renovated sales, then the renovation math: what those sellers likely spent, what they got above the refreshed tier, and how long it took. Sometimes the math works. Often it says take tier two and keep the months.
Three ways to price
- Draw the most buyers. List near the lower end of the value range to put the home in front of the most buyers in the first week and let competition do the work. The launch plan is built around a full first weekend and a set date for reviewing offers.
- Balanced. List at the recommended price, close to where the lines and the grid agree. A standard two-weekend launch, with the day-14 and day-21 rules in effect.
- Test the top of the range. List at the top of the value range, inside it and never above it, with a shorter leash and a fallback price agreed before launch. I recommend it only when the odds-of-sale and 14-day numbers in Part One support it.
All three sit inside the value range. The difference is where inside it, and what we have agreed to do in week three.
Approximation of value on one scale
Every method gets a mark on one scale so you can see them side by side: the total-finished fair market line, the above-grade line, the line plus the premium that renovated sales earned, the weighted comp grid, and the grid's range with the outliers removed. Where the methods overlap is the value range. A method that lands far from the others gets explained, not averaged in.
Automated estimates and the county tax assessment appear on the same scale, labeled, because you are going to see them anyway. They are not methods. An algorithm has not been inside your house, and an assessment is a tax instrument, not a sale.
The plan is written down before the sign goes in.
The last pages of the report are the ones we actually use once the home is live. Nothing in them is improvised under pressure, because all of it was decided while there was none.
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01
The short answer
One page: the value range, the recommended list price, the condition tier it assumes, the expected days to contract from Part One, and the launch week. If you read nothing else, read this page.
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02
Launch-week timing
Each possible start date over the coming weeks, with what the contracts-by-month data suggests it is likely to net once days on market and seasonal pricing are counted. Sometimes waiting three weeks is worth it. Sometimes it costs you. The page says which.
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03
Prepare
The refreshed-tier list, in order, from the Before We List walkthrough. Photos get scheduled only when the list is done, because the first two weeks of showings are the ones that set the outcome.
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04
Day 14: the first decision point
If there is no contract by day 14, the plan already says what changes: presentation, access, or a first price adjustment, chosen from what showing feedback and the weekly traffic report say. Decided before launch, so nobody is negotiating with themselves on day 15.
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05
Day 21: the fallback price
If there is still no contract by day 21, the fallback price is already in writing, with the evidence behind it, and we move to it on schedule. Homes that drift down in small cuts over months tend to finish below homes that made one decisive move early. The overpricing table usually shows that on your own street.
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06
Net proceeds
The Seller Net Sheet at the recommended price: sale price, commission, Maryland or DC transfer and recordation taxes, title charges, and any credits, down to an estimated net before your mortgage payoff. Your title company confirms the final figures. The report runs the same math at any other number you have in mind. See what it costs to sell in Maryland and DC.
The first two weeks decide most outcomes.
Here is what the data in these reports usually shows, in plain terms. No two neighborhoods are identical and I make no promises about yours, but the pattern repeats often enough that it is the reason the day-14 and day-21 rules exist.
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Launch week
Every serious buyer sees it at once
Buyers with a saved search get the alert the day the listing goes live. That pool is the largest audience a listing ever has. A fair price produces showings the first weekend. A high one produces clicks and no appointments.
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Days 1 to 14
The market gives its verdict
In most of the neighborhoods I measure, the majority of homes that sold at or above asking went under contract inside this window; the 14-day share in Part One gives the figure for your street. After it, the audience is mostly buyers newly entering the market, a much smaller stream.
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Day 21 and after
The price cut arrives late
A home that starts high usually cuts price around week three or four. By then it has days on market attached to it, buyers ask what is wrong with it, and in the overpricing tables the eventual sale price tends to land below where a right price would have landed at launch, after a longer wait and often with a concession on top.
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The lesson
Test inside the range, not above it
Testing the top of the value range is a strategy with a plan behind it. Starting above the range is paying, in time and usually in money, for information the report already had.
Auditability over polish.
A 21-page report is only worth something if every line in it can be traced and challenged. Here is the order the checking happens in.
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01I build it first
I pull the exports, read the records, choose the comps and make the adjustments myself. The judgment calls, condition, lot, which side of the road, are mine, and they are labeled as mine.
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02Independent models run it again
Separate AI models are given the same data and the same method and asked to produce the analysis on their own, without seeing my answer. Their results are set beside mine, number by number. The rules they work under are on the How I Use AI page.
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03Where we disagree, I dig in
A disagreement is never averaged away. It means one of us misread a record, mishandled an adjustment, or found something the other missed. I trace it back to the source until I know which.
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04Then I check the whole report twice by hand
Every figure on every page, against the MLS export or the county record it came from. Twice, on different days. It is the slowest step and the one I do not skip.
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05Every figure traces to a source, or it does not go in
Tight numbers, sources on every page, assumptions flagged where they are made, and a layout you can spot-check line by line. If a number cannot be traced to Bright MLS or the county, it is not in the report.
What owners usually ask.
Straight answers to the questions I hear most often before a pricing conversation.
Is this an appraisal?
No. An appraisal is an independent opinion of value by a licensed appraiser, usually ordered by a buyer's lender. The Seller Pricing Analysis is a broker's opinion of value, built to choose a list price and a plan. It is designed to land near where an appraiser is likely to land, but it does not replace one, and I am not an appraiser.
Why not just use the Zestimate?
Look at it; it is on the one-scale page. But an automated estimate has not seen your kitchen, does not know your lot backs to a parkway, and cannot tell a finished basement from an unfinished one unless the county record says so. An estimate can be reasonable on average and still miss on a specific house, and yours is the only house you care about.
How is this different from a CMA?
A comparative market analysis is usually a handful of recent sales with adjustments, and it is a legitimate tool. This report contains one, the adjusted comp grid, and then checks it against four other methods, two years of market odds and timing, the active competition, and a written plan. The grid is one witness. The report is the whole case.
What if I think my home is worth more?
Tell me the number and I will put it on the scale with everything else. The report shows what the homes that actually sold at that level had that yours does or does not, what it cost the nearby listings that started there, and what a buyer's monthly payment looks like at that number versus the recommendation. Then it is your home and your decision. I would rather show you the evidence and lose the argument than win it and list too high.
How long does the analysis take, and what do you need from me?
Typically a few days from our first conversation, depending on how many sales there are to read. From you: a walk through the house, the years of any major updates, what you paid and when if you are comfortable sharing it, and the condition tier you are leaning toward. The rest comes from Bright MLS, the county, RPR, T3, FHFA and Freddie Mac.
Do I get the report if I don't list with you?
Yes. You keep the report either way. I build it to earn the listing, not to hold it hostage, and an owner who understands their own evidence tends to make a better decision whichever agent they choose.
Start with the number, then we talk about the plan.
Get a quick estimate now, or book fifteen minutes and I will tell you what a full analysis of your address would cover.
Equal Housing Opportunity. Michael Wade, REALTOR®, Samson Properties, licensed in Maryland and Washington, DC. 443-812-9980. The Seller Pricing Analysis is a broker's opinion of value prepared to help a seller choose a list price and a plan; it is not an appraisal, and Michael Wade is not a licensed appraiser. The benchmarks and patterns described on this page are general observations from past analyses, not predictions or promises about any particular home or sale. Net proceeds figures are planning estimates; your title company confirms final closing costs.