Why did three Troy Federal valuations come back fifteen percent apart?
The situations described here are composites drawn from the types of jobs and decisions we encounter regularly. Names and specific figures are illustrative.
A Troy Federal seller last summer asked three agents for a comparative market analysis before picking a listing partner. Standard due diligence for anyone getting serious about selling a home in Albany, NY. The numbers came back at $365,000, $412,000, and $438,000 on the same house. That’s a $73,000 spread, or 15 percent of the highest quote. Both extremes can’t be right. Understanding which one was actually defensible is the difference between a top-third close and a 60-day price-cut cycle.
How the three CMAs actually got built
The $365,000 CMA came from an agent who pulled fifteen recent sales within a half mile, filtered for 1900-to-1920 Federals, and adjusted each comp for square footage, condition, mechanical stack, and micro-block. The comparables actually looked like the subject house. The adjustments were specific. The range was defensible.
The $412,000 CMA came from an agent who pulled twenty recent sales within a mile, without filtering for architectural era, and averaged them. A restored 1925 Colonial two blocks over pulled the number up. A partially-renovated 1885 Second Empire on the next street pulled it up further. Neither was actually comparable to the subject property. The average was arithmetically clean and structurally wrong.
The $438,000 CMA came from an agent who wanted the listing. The comparables were selectively drawn from the highest recent sales on the block, adjustments were minimal or missing, and the range was pushed to justify the pitch. It wasn’t defensible and probably wasn’t meant to be.
Which one turned out right
The house sold at $378,000 in 43 days. The $365,000 CMA was closest to the actual outcome, and the specific process behind it was the right one. The $412,000 CMA missed by 9 percent. The $438,000 CMA missed by 14 percent.
The seller had picked the $438,000 agent. The house sat at $438,000 for 18 days, cut to $419,000 for 15 days, cut again to $395,000 for 8 days, then accepted an offer at $378,000. The 43-day timeline included two price cuts that signaled seller weakness to the market. Net proceeds after commission and closing costs came to roughly $349,000. The defensible $365,000 CMA would have listed at $359,000, gone under contract at $368,000 to $375,000 in the first two weeks, and netted roughly $346,000 after commission.
The two outcomes are within $3,000 of each other. The seller lost 25 days of calendar and one price cut’s worth of market signal for basically the same net proceeds.
How a seller reads a defensible CMA from an aspirational one
Three signals. First, the comparables actually look like the subject house — same era, same style, same rough square footage, same mechanical stack maturity. If the comps include houses from a different decade or a different architectural type, the CMA is drifting.
Second, the adjustments are specific and numeric. “Comp A adjusted down $12,000 for smaller lot, up $8,000 for older furnace difference.” If the CMA says “comparable with adjustments” without showing the adjustments, the number was picked before the analysis.
Third, the range is a range. A single number is aspirational. A defensible CMA produces a range — usually 8 to 12 percent wide from low to high — and explains which factors would move the eventual close inside that range.
Why aspirational CMAs are so common
Sellers commonly pick the highest-quoted agent. That’s a repeatable market dynamic, and some agents optimize their CMA process around winning the listing rather than producing an accurate valuation. The math on the agent’s side: even if the house eventually closes at 90 percent of the aspirational list price after cuts, the agent still gets commission on that sale. From the agent’s perspective, the aspirational CMA wins the listing that a defensible CMA might not have.
From the seller’s perspective, the aspirational CMA costs 15 to 25 days of calendar and often thousands in price cuts. The math doesn’t work in the seller’s favor. It works in the agent’s.
What most sellers ask when the CMA comparison gets serious
The question is usually “how do we tell if the CMA is defensible without being real estate experts ourselves.” The specific test: ask the agent to walk through three of the comparables in detail. What year, what style, what square footage, what condition, what mechanical stack, what specific adjustment applied and why. A defensible CMA passes that test cleanly. An aspirational CMA falls apart at the third comp.
What the reader takes from this
Three CMAs on the same house can come back 15 percent apart. Picking the highest one is almost always the wrong move. The defensible number, produced through comparable filtering and specific adjustments, is what the market actually pays. Selling into an aspirational number produces days-on-market penalties and price cuts that reduce net proceeds without adding much to the eventual closing price.
Our selling a home in Albany, NY guide walks through the CMA process and the marketing plan that follows. The sellers guide covers the specifics. For a specific address, the contact page is the fastest path. Our Albany 2026 market forecast for sellers covers the market context.
