Investor Valuation Tool
What the comps support, what a lender will likely use, and how far your number is from both.
Reading a valuation the way an underwriter does
Most valuation tools answer the question a seller asks: what is this worth? An investor is asking something narrower and more useful — will the appraisal come in where I need it? Those are different questions, and the second one is answered by looking at the same evidence a lender will look at, in the same order.
Lenders take the lower number
An underwriter typically sees two independent estimates: an automated valuation model, and an appraiser’s reconciliation of comparable sales. When they agree, the file moves. When they disagree, nobody in the process has a reliable way to decide which is right, so the conservative number wins. This tool leads with the comp-supported value because comps beat models, but it sizes the loan off the lower of the two, which is what actually happens.
How comparables get adjusted
An appraiser does not average comparable sales. They adjust each one toward the subject — what would this house have sold for if it had been yours? — and then reconcile the adjusted figures. A comp with an extra bedroom is adjusted down; one in worse condition is adjusted up; one that sold nine months ago is moved forward for whatever the market has done since.
Two details in that process do most of the damage when they are done carelessly. The first is size: crediting full market price per square foot against a size difference overstates a larger comp badly, because land and systems do not scale with the floor plan. The second is time: applying a market trend fitted to three sales is not a market adjustment, it is noise with a decimal point. This tool halves the square-foot rate and refuses to fit a trend at all below five comparables, saying so rather than quietly assuming zero.
Why ARV needs renovated comps
After-repair value is a claim about a sale that has not happened yet. The only evidence for it is finished houses that have sold nearby. If there are none, an appraiser has nothing to reconcile toward and will not reach an aggressive number — not because they are being difficult, but because the file has to survive review by someone who was not there. A flip underwritten to an ARV that no renovated comparable supports is a flip with a funding gap that appears at the worst possible moment.
When the appraisal misses
A low appraisal is not final. Every lender has a reconsideration of value process, and the ones that succeed are the ones that arrive with better comparables, a clear adjustment grid, and a specific factual objection rather than a complaint about the number. The comp set and adjustments on this page are structured for exactly that purpose. The rebuttal builder that turns them into a formal reconsideration-of-value request is not published yet; until it is, the shareable link from the tool carries the whole comp set and its adjustments.
What this cannot tell you
It cannot tell you whether a deal will fund, and it does not try. It has never seen the inside of the property, does not know the quality of the finishes, and cannot tell an arm’s-length sale from a transfer between relatives when the public record does not say. Where the data is silent, the tool says so instead of filling the gap with something plausible.
Common questions
- Why do lenders use the lower of the AVM and the comps?
- Because they are lending against the number they can defend if the loan goes bad, not the number that makes the deal work. An automated valuation model and a comparable-sales analysis are two independent estimates of the same thing, and when they disagree the underwriter has no way to tell which is right — so they take the conservative one. That is why this tool shows both and leads with the lower figure rather than blending them into an average nobody uses.
- How do appraisers adjust comparable sales?
- They ask what each comparable would have sold for if it had been your property instead: same size, same bedroom count, same condition, sold today. Every difference gets a line and a dollar amount. A comp with an extra bathroom is adjusted down, because part of what the buyer paid was for that bathroom. The adjustments in this tool follow the same convention and are shown line by line, because a net figure with no working behind it is not something anyone can argue with.
- Why is the living-area adjustment only half the market rate per square foot?
- Because a house with ten percent more finished space does not sell for ten percent more. The land, the roof, the kitchen and the mechanical systems do not scale with the floor plan, so the marginal square foot is worth appreciably less than the average one. Crediting full market price per square foot against a size difference is the single most common way an amateur adjustment grid talks itself into an ARV that no appraiser will reach.
- Why does an ARV need renovated comparables?
- Because an after-repair value is a claim about what a finished house sells for, and the only evidence for that claim is finished houses that sold. If nothing renovated has traded nearby, an appraiser has nothing to point at either — and will not reach an aggressive number however good the renovation plan looks on paper. This tool reports high gap risk whenever fewer than three renovated comparables exist, regardless of the target, because that is the constraint the appraiser is working under too.
- What is appraisal gap risk?
- How far the number you are underwriting to sits above what the evidence supports, and how likely that gap is to show up as a low appraisal. It rises when your target is above the adjusted comps, when it is above the automated estimate, and when the comparable set is too thin or too scattered to defend any number confidently. A small gap on six tight comps is a very different proposition from the same gap on four sales a mile apart.
- What does it mean if my property is DSCR-constrained?
- That the rent, not the value, is what is limiting the loan. A property can appraise well and still not support the loan you want, because a debt-service-coverage lender sizes the loan from the rent it collects. Knowing which constraint binds tells you what to negotiate: an appraisal problem is argued with comps, a coverage problem is argued with rent, a longer amortization or an interest-only period. Borrowers routinely spend weeks on the wrong one.
- Can I use this instead of an appraisal?
- No, and no lender will accept it as one. An appraiser inspects the property, judges condition and quality of construction first-hand, adjusts for factors no dataset carries, and reconciles the comparables with local knowledge. This works from public sale records and an automated model. It is a fast, honest read on whether your number is defensible before you spend money finding out — not a valuation.
- Where does the comparable sales data come from?
- Recorded sales from the public record, supplied through RentCast, filtered to the property type, size, bedroom and bathroom range you would expect an appraiser to use. They are recorded sales rather than active listings, which matters: a listing price is what a seller hopes to get and a sale price is what a buyer paid. Sales with no publicly recorded price are excluded rather than guessed at, which means coverage is thinner in non-disclosure states. One thing the record does not carry is whether a sale was arm's length, so a transfer between relatives cannot be told apart from an open-market sale by the data alone. Sales priced far out of line with the rest of the set are excluded automatically, and any that survive but still look low are flagged in the table — but a comp you know was not an open-market sale is one to untick.